Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling told Newsmax on Wednesday the Trump administration is ramping up its national apprenticeship program as a central strategy to fill jobs, calling it "the fastest way to get skilled Americans in the workforce."
Speaking on "Ed Henry The Big Take," Sonderling pointed to National Apprenticeship Week as an opportunity to highlight the administration’s push to expand hands-on training programs tied directly to employer needs.
"We believe that registered apprenticeships are the way to go," Sonderling said.
"It’s a debt-free way to get in, and more importantly, it allows employers to make the curriculum, not academic institutions that really don’t understand how to perform a job."
Sonderling, who was named acting secretary last week after the resignation of Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, linked the initiative to broader economic policy, saying President Donald Trump’s efforts to bring manufacturing and investment back to the United States are creating demand for skilled labor.
"The president has delivered in bringing investment into the U.S., bringing factories back to the U.S., and that’s going to create more jobs," he said.
The Labor Department said in a Monday news release that the administration is working toward Trump’s goal of creating 1 million new registered apprenticeships, part of an executive order issued within his first 100 days in office.
Sonderling said progress is already underway.
"Since the start of this administration, there have been 390,000 new registered apprenticeships and 3,300 new programs," he said, adding, "the best part of it...the average wage is $86,000 for registered apprenticeships."
The department has also marked the week with nearly 3,000 events nationwide aimed at connecting workers with training opportunities and employers.
Sonderling emphasized that apprenticeship programs extend beyond traditional trade jobs, even as demand rises for skilled workers such as electricians and plumbers to support infrastructure and data center growth.
"It’s all different kinds of jobs," he said.
"Whether you want to work in the trades or whether you want to go into tech or into finance, the registered apprenticeship system works," Sonderling said.
He added that the broader goal is to "get our workforce into jobs that pay and to get them skilled," describing the initiative as central to the administration’s effort to "skill America."
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