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While many companies are working to address the shortage, General Motors has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build its own pipeline of future workers.
Over the past five years alone, the automaker has invested more than $242 million in its skilled trades apprenticeship program, which is geared toward training the next generation of skilled trade professionals with a combination of classroom instruction and thousands of hours of hands-on experience at a GM facility, Michael Trevorrow, GM's senior vice president of global manufacturing, told FOX Business.
Apprentices will go through up to 672 hours of related technical instruction in a classroom setting and approximately 7,920 hours of on-the-job training with an assigned qualified skilled trades person. Focus areas of the program include a diemaker, electrician, experimental assembler inspector, experimental laboratory paint technician,
millwright, metal model maker, wood model maker, pattern maker, pipefitter, toolmaker and machine repairer.
In fact, the apprenticeship program is where Trevorrow got his start in the industry. The executive worked his way from a diemaker apprentice to overseeing all of GM’s manufacturing operations worldwide. Many others are following in his footsteps, with 600 apprentices graduating from the program each year, according to Trevorrow.
At the end of the course, participants will earn a journeyperson card, which is an official credential that proves someone has completed an apprenticeship and is now fully qualified to work in a skilled trade without direct supervision. Veterans who enter the program may be able to complete the program in a shorter amount of time given their prior knowledge.
