About This Resource

This resource is designed to help employers better understand the benefits of inclusive apprenticeship programs and how collaborating with apprenticeship intermediaries, disability advocates, and people with disabilities can help create inclusive apprenticeship programs that enable job seekers with disabilities to gain credentials and skills to succeed in growing industries.

Inclusive apprenticeship programs provide employers with a pipeline of untapped talent and can help organizations save time and money throughout all stages of the employment lifecycle, from recruitment and onboarding to related technical instruction (RTI) and on-the-job training (OJT).

To help inform this resource and advance our understanding of how we can create more inclusive career pathways, we collected perspectives from employers, apprenticeship intermediaries, disability advocates, and people with disabilities about their views on apprenticeship programs. 

Employers have long experienced the benefits of Registered Apprenticeship programs that create career pathways for job seekers; about 79% of employers who offered us their perspective agreed that an apprenticeship program would benefit their organization’s bottom line. These work-based learning programs provide paid on-the-job training and related instruction in the classroom, which can save employers time and money spent to pre-screen and train candidates and build a pipeline of qualified talent.

Many organizations are making a concerted effort to create a more inclusive workplace where all employees, including those with disabilities, can succeed. At the same time, employers are struggling to find qualified talent, particularly in high-growth, high-demand (HGHD) industries, including clean energy, information technology (IT), data science, healthcare, banking and finance, and more. As reported in the Skills Gap Survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), over half of human resources professionals said the skills gap has worsened in the past two years.

Employers who champion the inclusion of workers with disabilities in the workplace earn 28% higher revenue. Inclusive talent pipelines, such as apprenticeship, can help promote greater workplace productivity and innovation.