Source: Wisconsin Policy Forum
Our July 2025 report, Mastering Apprenticeships, found that the number of people employed as registered apprentices in Wisconsin reached an all-time high in 2024, but that participation varied considerably by occupation and county. That was welcome news given employers in the state continue to report struggles to find needed workers in many occupations.
In this follow-up, we seek to identify potential opportunities to strengthen Wisconsin’s workforce by analyzing registered apprenticeship participation figures alongside job projection and wage data from the state’s Department of Workforce Development. This analysis offers insight into the extent to which apprenticeships are helping to meet statewide and regional demand for workers in key occupations with large numbers of expected job openings – and where there may be unmet needs. We supplemented this analysis with stakeholder interviews that provided on-the-ground perspectives from economic and workforce development leaders and labor unions across the state.
Overall, though several construction and manufacturing occupations have relatively high registered apprenticeship participation and wages due to their longstanding ties to the state’s apprenticeship system, most other occupations with large numbers of job openings have limited apprenticeship opportunities, lower participation levels, or lower wages. Our analysis also shows that some areas of the state have far stronger apprenticeship numbers than others relative to projected regional job openings across sectors. South central and northeast Wisconsin have the highest ratios of new apprentices to projected job openings among the state’s 11 workforce development areas, while northwest and west central Wisconsin have the lowest ratios.
We also find that apprenticeship pathways do not exist in Wisconsin for several occupations with large numbers of job openings and federally registered apprenticeship programs operating in other states. For several additional occupations, apprenticeship programs in Wisconsin are currently only offered by employers in a limited area or capacity. As we will discuss, not all of these occupations or areas will be suitable for fostering apprenticeships. Still, these findings may indicate opportunities for developing or expanding apprenticeship pathways in some of these occupations.
Uneven Participation and Pay
The number of Wisconsinites participating in the state’s registered apprenticeship programs differs widely by occupation and region – as do wages for those occupations. Our analysis begins with a look at 22 top occupations with registered apprenticeship pathways in Wisconsin that are projected by the state Department of Workforce Development to have at least 1,000 annual job openings statewide through 2032.
Relatively strong participation and pay in several construction and production occupations
The three occupations with the highest apprenticeship participation totals in Wisconsin in 2024 – electricians, carpenters, and construction laborers – are all in construction, as shown in Figure 1. Some production (manufacturing) occupations such as welders also had relatively strong participation. Six of the 22 selected occupations included in Figure 1 are in one of those two categories, accounting for an estimated 1,618 new apprentices in Wisconsin in 2024 – nearly three-quarters of the combined total across the selected occupations (see sidebar for how we estimated the numbers of new apprentices in 2024 in this report). All six of those occupations had median annual wages above $40,000 as of 2022.
In construction, electricians had both the highest participation and pay, with an estimated 921 new apprentices in 2024 and annual median wages of $70,350. Carpenters and construction laborers also had strong participation and median annual wages above $40,000.
The production occupation with the highest participation was welding, with an estimated 23 new registered apprentices in 2024. Other production occupations have smaller apprenticeship programs, including “inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers,” which had only one participant.
State job projections show an annual total of 11,393 job openings in Wisconsin from 2022 to 2032 across these six selected construction and production occupations. Demand is especially strong for construction laborers (2,547), inspectors (2,151), and welders (2,088).
Varied participation and wages in other occupations
By contrast, apprenticeship participation and pay in other occupations are far more uneven. We estimate that for nine of the 16 selected occupations in Figure 1 that are not in construction or production, fewer than 10 new apprentices were added statewide in 2024. This includes several occupations with large numbers of job openings such as home health and personal care aides, cooks, janitors, and registered nurses.
Multiple factors may contribute to low apprenticeship participation rates for these occupations, including low pay in some cases. Six of these 16 occupations have median annual wages below $40,000. For example, with more than 14,000 annual projected job openings statewide, there is greater demand for home health and personal care aides than any other occupation with an apprenticeship pathway in Wisconsin, but we estimate that in 2024, only six new apprentices were added statewide. The median annual wages for home health and personal care aides are roughly $29,000.
Beyond wages, state law, a lack of employer interest, and training and licensing requirements can also limit apprenticeship participation in some occupations. In home health care, for instance, only more advanced roles require enough training to meet the one-year training minimum for registered apprenticeships.
A few occupations with lower wages still manage to attract relatively strong apprenticeship participation, due in part to regulatory requirements and additional grant assistance. Those include cosmetologists and early childhood educators, which had 151 and 26 estimated new apprentices in 2024, respectively, despite median annual wages below $33,000. Notably, cosmetology is a licensed occupation that requires apprenticeship training by law. Additionally, the early childhood apprenticeship program received federal grant funding through the Department of Workforce Development.
Apprenticeship programs for several other occupations are only offered in a limited capacity, such as elementary and middle school teachers (currently only available as a pilot program), or only through employment opportunities with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (janitors and horticulturalists, the latter of which is associated with farmworkers and laborers).
Participation Weaker in Some Regions, Occupations
To zero in on how well apprenticeship participation is keeping pace with employer demand, we compared estimated numbers of new apprentices in 2024 with projected annual job openings across Wisconsin’s 11 workforce development regions in 10 key occupations.
As Figure 2 shows, these apprentice-to-job opening ratios vary greatly by area, revealing potential opportunities to strengthen participation in regions with weaker ratios in some or all of these occupations. The selected occupations in Figure 2 each had at least 100 active apprentices in Wisconsin in 2024 and are projected to have at least 500 annual job openings statewide. They include electricians; plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters; carpenters; operating engineers and equipment operators; construction laborers; industrial machinery mechanics; HVAC mechanics and installers; cosmetologists; machinists; and medical assistants. The “Total (Top 10 Occupations)” layer combines all 10 of those occupations into one broad measure.
Northwest and west central Wisconsin have lowest apprentice-to-job ratios
In 2024, northwest Wisconsin had just 0.8 estimated new apprentices for every 10 projected annual job openings across these 10 selected occupations. That was less than half the statewide ratio of 2.1 and lower than every other workforce development area in the state. The northwest region also had the lowest total participation by far among Wisconsin’s 11 workforce development areas, with only 32 estimated new apprentices in the selected occupations. All other regions had at least 100 estimated new apprentices in these occupations that year.
Participation lagged in the northwest region even in construction occupations that have strong apprentice-to-job opening ratios statewide. For example, electricians had 7.1 estimated new apprentices for every 10 annual projected job openings in 2024, but that ratio was only 1.8 in northwest Wisconsin. That program had the most estimated new apprentices statewide among the selected occupations that year, at 921, but only five of those were in the northwest region. The trends were similar for carpenters.
While west central Wisconsin had the second-lowest ratio (1.5) among the state’s workforce development areas in 2024, it had far more (over 160) estimated new apprentices than northwest Wisconsin in the selected occupations that year. It is also notable that Northwoods Technical College in west central Wisconsin is providing the related training for the first surgical technology apprenticeship program in the state. While individual colleges within the Wisconsin Technical College System often provide related instruction, new apprenticeship programs are established based on the needs and preferences of local employers, who often play a role by providing access to facilities, lab space, or specialized equipment. Northwoods Technical College offers an associate degree program in surgical technology as well, which can be advantageous as classes serve both apprentices and degree-seeking students.
The mission of the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership | Building Industry Group Skilled Trade Employment Program (WRTP | BIG STEP) is to enhance the ability of public and private sector organizations to recruit, develop, and retain a more diverse, qualified workforce in construction, manufacturing, and emerging sectors of the regional economy. The nonprofit serves Wisconsin residents in the Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, and northern Wisconsin regions.