Notes

1 Budget item (Chapter 2) Item 364 2022 Special Session 1, State Budget, Legislative Information System (LIS), Virginia General Assembly, Commonwealth of Virginia, https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/item/2022/2/HB30/Chapter/1/364/

2 2022 Virginia Acts of Assembly ch. 699 and 700 https://law.lis.virginia.gov/uncodifiedacts/2022/session1/chapter699/, https://law.lis. virginia.gov/uncodifiedacts/2022/session1/chapter700/

In the 2022 legislative session, the Virginia Office of Education Economics (VOEE) at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) was asked to provide data analysis on registered apprenticeships in Virginia. This was a two-step process. The first step was contained in budget item 364,3 which directed the Office of Registered Apprenticeship at the Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) to provide VOEE with its existing data on registered apprenticeships by December 31, 2022, and to update those data quarterly thereafter. The VOEE and DOLI teams decided to use the federal Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Database System (RAPIDS). Data is updated in the RAPIDS system once a year, so an annual pull from this database will fulfill the first step. The second step, House Bill 718 (Filler-Corn)/Senate Bill 661(Lucas) directed the Virginia Board of Workforce Development to collaborate with DOLI, the Department of Education, and the Secretaries of Labor, Education, and Commerce and Trade to review the performance of current apprenticeship programs in meeting high-demand industry needs.4 VOEE was tasked with analyzing the DOLI data. This paper serves as the deliverable for the second charge. While the full paper provides data on youth apprenticeships and on apprenticeships by region, this executive summary focuses on the findings that emerged from data analysis on registered apprentices statewide.

It should be noted that the Virginia Board of Workforce Development’s Access and Equity Committee released a white paper on November 10, 2022, entitled, “Recommendations to Improve Virginia’s Utilization of Registered Apprenticeships in the New Virginia Economy,” which is the primary product for the General Assembly charge.5

Terms Used in this Report

Several terms are used throughout this report and in the supplemental data file. Their definitions are as follows:

Active apprentices: Individuals who are engaged in a registered apprenticeship program as of the reference date (when reporting active apprentices by year, the reference date is the final day of the fiscal year, September 30).

New apprentices: Individuals who began an apprenticeship during the reference period.

Completed: Individuals who successfully completed an apprenticeship during the reference period.

Fiscal Year: In alignment with the federal government’s reporting structure, fiscal years in this report refer to the federal fiscal year (October 1–September 30).