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The report presents the findings of the United Services Military Apprenticeship Program (USMAP) Implementation Study and Feasibility of an Impact Study as conducted by L&M Policy Research and the Urban Institute. In undertaking the analysis, the L&M-Urban team interviewed key staff members involved with USMAP operations. In addition, the team conducted 11 focus groups at two Navy and two Marine Corps bases with USMAP apprentices, USMAP completers, and USMAP supervisors. USMAP brings occupational training within the military together with the registered apprenticeship system overseen by the Office of Apprenticeship (OA) in the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). In order to maintain an effective fighting force, the military provides service members with intensive classroom training before gaining experience and working in their military occupation. Like other employers who register their apprenticeship programs, USMAP gains registration for various occupational programs partly by submitting work processes that describe the skills apprentices will learn on the job and off the jobs (usually in classrooms).

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Key Takeaways

• USMAP apprenticeships add, at most, modest amounts of training beyond the classroom and workplace training that service members receive without the program. All service members attend classes to prepare for their occupational assignment, and all are coached as they transition to working in the field.
• Completing an apprenticeship appears to bring little gain to participants while they remain in the Navy or Marine Corps.
• Many apprentices and supervisors have only a limited understanding of the purposes of USMAP. They are provided with very limited or no orientation to the program.
• While documenting skills in relation to a Registered Apprenticeship occupation can in itself help service members find jobs, USMAP has done little to communicate how private employers can benefit from hiring apprenticeships completers in specific fields or to adapt work processes to meet demands in the civilian sectors.
• Certain USMAP administrative practices frustrate some apprentices.
• USMAP completion rates look well below 50 percent.

Research Gaps

• When the timing for an evaluation is deemed appropriate, L&M-Urban suggest using one or more of three strategies. The first is a “randomized-encouragement” approach involving differential marketing to service members, either individually or by command. A second strategy involves finding instrumental variables that predict participation or completion in United Services Military Apprenticeship Program (USMAP) but do not exert any direct effect on civilian earnings. The primary challenge with both these options is ensuring that the encouragement is effective or that the instrument is correlated with participation or completion. A third approach is to conduct a résumé-audit study: evaluators would send résumés to employers or post résumés to a jobs website for hypothetical Sailors and Marines that are identical except for the presence or absence of a USMAP certification. (page 37)

Citation

Lerman, R., Hanson, D., Tanamor, M., Blatt, L. (2015). The United Services Military Apprenticeship Program (USMAP) Implementation Study and Feasibility of an Impact Study. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.