Farber, David J. 1967. "Apprenticeship in the United States: Labor Market Forces and Social Policy." Journal of Human Resources 2(1):70-96.

This article is concerned with the extent to which the apprenticeship program responds to short-run changes in the U.S. economy. Mr. Farber shows that the number of new apprenticeship registrants varies inversely with the level of unemployment in the economy as a whole. The apprentice-completion rate, however, varies directly with the level of unemployment, inversely with changes in inter-industry mobility, and in the case of construction apprentices, directly with wage differentials between skilled and semi-skilled workers. These relationships suggest that participation in apprenticeship does respond to changes in the economy, and that the role of labor unions in apprenticeship may have been over-stated.

The author questions general concern with apprentice dropout rates. An ideal completion rate is presumably one which satisfies precisely present and projected demand for skilled workers. A fair assessment of whether dropout rates are too high requires the construction of accurate projections of demand, the difficulties of which are numerous.

In discussing Mr. Farber's paper, Mr. Belitsky is critical of some of his generalizations and suggests that apprenticeship should be both regarded and acted upon more consistently as a form of individual and social investment, while Mr. Barbash enlarges briefly on the nature of unions' interest in apprenticeship.

Mr. Farber is Assistant Chief of the Division of Research, Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training. Mr. Belitsky is a Research Economist with the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Washington. Mr. Barbash is Professor of Economics at The University of Wisconsin. Presented at the Conference on Research in Apprenticeship Training, co-sponsored by the Office of Manpower Policy, Evaluation, and Research of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Center for Studies in Vocational and Technical Education, The University of Wisconsin, September 8-9, 1966. The authors' views should not be ascribed to the institutions they serve. Mr. Farber wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. Rufus Daniels, Statistician, Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training, who prepared the correlation and regression coefficients and assisted with the statistical analysis.

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US ISSN 0022-166X

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