Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry Secretary Jennifer Berrier has many praises for the Pittsburgh Technology Council's apprenticeship program — ApprentiPGH, which has welcomed dozens of apprentices since its launch in October 2021.
Berrier offered these comments during a Monday event hosted at the downtown Pittsburgh offices of IT and business consulting services firm CGI Technologies and Solutions, one of several businesses in the region to take on apprentices from the program.
"Apprenticeship is an old concept in the United States, but what's true is that apprenticeship is experiencing a new workforce development renaissance in the 21st century," Berrier said. "What we're here to celebrate today is that there are new industries, what we call nontraditional industries, who are actually using this model and these industries include finance, business, IT, telecommunications, hospitality, health care, energy — and they are providing industry-driven training to create a more productive and diverse workforce, which is pretty amazing."
Berrier said that Gov. Tom Wolf established an apprenticeship and training office several years ago as part of an effort to recognize the importance that such a system has in achieving Pennsylvania's workforce development needs. Today, Berrier said the office supports more than 17,000 active apprentices and that the Wolf administration has invested more than $28 million into apprenticeship programs throughout the commonwealth since 2018.
"With an estimated skills gap that we have in Pennsylvania, it's a model that's going to work," Berrier said. "Apprenticeship programs equal employment that provides family-sustaining wages and opportunities — like the one offered here through Fortyx 80 and the Pittsburgh Technology Council's registered apprenticeship program — empower Pennsylvania's workers to make career choices that work for them and their families, and it provides a roadmap for Pennsylvania businesses to access the talent that they might not find otherwise."
According to Berrier, that's the case for many employers in the technology industry, a sector of the Pittsburgh economy that continues to grow year over year. She cited a study conducted last month by the Technology Councils of North America that found Pittsburgh's tech workforce to have increased by 7.5% between January 2021 and April 2022.
"We need to meet that demand, we need to provide skilled workers, and this is a great program that gets us there," Berrier said. "The Department of Labor and Industry is committing to not just growing the number of quality registered apprenticeships across the commonwealth, but continuing to educate and advocate for this model in nontraditional industries."
Rigel Richardson, a software developer apprentice at CGI, shared her candid experience with the ApprentiPGH thus far, which includes competitive compensation while she is training and working.
"The framework of the program was so promising and so amazing in terms of the financial support and the earning income and the learning that we would do in such a short period of time that until CGI had me sign some paperwork, I thought I was involved in an elaborate scam," Richardson said. "We spoke a lot about the barriers of entry for this industry and Apprenti is what bridges work experience into industry. I would not have been able to break into the tech industry without this support because I was one of those people who couldn't afford a boot camp, I couldn't afford to make an entire quarter without income or to support full-time learning in this way."
Richardson continued, "helping make this program a reality has absolutely transformed my life … I can't tell you what an amazing impact it's made for me and my family and my community."
