Take workforce development into your own hands.

The challenge: Demand for welding professionals is rising while the number is shrinking.

Over 82,000 welding jobs need to be filled annually between now and 2028. With over 159,000 welders nearing retirement, employers are set to lose critical knowledge in addition to qualified workers.

The solution: Welding apprenticeships enable you to build up the talent pipeline you need.

The American Welding Society Foundation makes it easy to get started. We connect employers to the partners, training resources, student success software, and peer network to help get to work.

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More employers are starting their

own apprenticeships.

Apprenticeship programs aren’t just for unions. In specialized work such as marine and high-spec structural aerospace, skill has to be built on the job. That’s why companies are building the workforce they need today with this time-tested training framework.

Preserve knowledge.

As experienced welders approach retirement, mentoring apprentices ensures that hard-won judgment gets transferred.

Build for the next generation.

Investing in apprenticeships pays back over years in the form of a pipeline of work-ready welders trained to your standards.

Keep pace with innovation.

Structured training combined with classroom theory in computer and math skills future-proofs both apprentices and your company.

Hear from employers who are making apprenticeship programs work.

“We need welders to build ships. If we don’t have the welders, we can’t build them.”

“We don’t have to invest in apprenticeships. We could choose not to. We won’t because we value them.”

“We need a bullpen of individuals who are qualified, ready to go at any given time.”

The nuts and bolts of

welding apprenticeships.

Four things come together to create a successful program.

Paid Employee

Your apprentice is on payroll from day one, accomplishing work that contributes to your bottom line.

Many employers tie raises to demonstrated competency. That gives apprentices something concrete to work toward and puts more capable hands on higher-value work.

On-the-Job Training

You provide the hands-on hours and mentorship, built around how your floor already runs.

Mentorship is the difference between a program that works and one that doesn’t, and the strongest programs share it across trainers, inspectors, and leaders.

Classroom Theory

An education partner like a community college, technical school, or remote educator provides the theory.

The right institution can often take on more than the teaching load, handling recruitment, a share of the paperwork, and more.

Registered Program

Registering with the Department of Labor unlocks funding and gives your apprentice a nationally recognized credential.

You don’t even have to be the sponsor of a program. Registering is the point where many shops raise their hand and find support.

Strike the right balance.

Every program handles these four elements differently. We interviewed 12 shops that are making apprenticeships work to put together the Welding Apprenticeship Blueprint. There, you can see how others made those calls, and where the Foundation can take some of the work off your plate.

Explore the Blueprint

FAQs

Get the facts.

Before you build anything, you have to make the case to your team. Here’s what the employers who are already training apprentices told us about getting started.

Click or tap to get the honest answers to common objections.

"What’s keeping apprentices from leaving after we train them?"

Apprentices don’t just build skills. They also build relationships with your experienced welders. One steel fabricator we talked to maintains an 85 to 90 percent completion rate and credits its supervisors and mentors with the success of its program. Retention is built by the people doing the leading.

“We’re too small for this.”

We talked to companies with fewer than 100 employees who successfully run these programs. Different arrangements can better suit your size and needs. Participating in a consortium, for example, allows you to take one apprentice at a time, with a school or Career Academy can carry recruiting, vetting, theory, and paperwork.

“A program like this is too expensive.”

The federal government provides program sponsors $3,500 in funding, and individual states frequently offer tax credits. Your local workforce development agency can help secure this funding.

“We don’t have the structure or the time.”

You do not have to build it yourself. American Welding Society Foundation training plans give you a structure to start from. A school, a consortium, or an existing industry sponsor can manage documentation and the administration, allowing you to focus on on-the-job training.

“Apprenticeships are just for labor unions.”

Any company can register its own welding apprenticeship program, union or not, and your local workforce development board will help you build and promote it.

“Apprenticeships don’t fit my industry.”

Registered welding apprenticeships run in aerospace, construction, fabrication, manufacturing, maritime and shipbuilding, oil and gas, piping, and structural work. Because the work differs so much between them, the AWS Foundation is developing guidelines sector by sector, starting with structural fabrication alongside the American Institute of Steel Construction.

“A weld test can already tell us if someone can do the job.”

A weld test captures one moment. Plenty of welders can lay a clean bead without reading a blueprint, interpreting welding symbols, or explaining why a joint is done the way it is.

Welding apprenticeships teach the necessary, higher value skills: following direction, listening and incorporating feedback, thinking critically, and improving over time.

“Won’t automation make welders obsolete?”

The employers we talked to who have automated the most understand better than most that technology doesn’t eliminate the work. It just changes it. Machines take over the repetitive and the unsafe tasks. What’s left actually demands more from welders, requiring higher skill and more learning.

Get the full picture in the Welding Apprenticeship Blueprint.

We sat down with companies running welding apprenticeships right now—from a century-old shipbuilder to a rural equipment manufacturer to a fast-growing steel fabricator—and asked what works, what’s hard, and what they wish someone had told them at the start.

They gave us actionable insights into decisions, trade-offs, and a handful of things nobody can afford to skip.

Start Here

Build your workforce, your way.

Partner with the American Welding Society to explore the opportunities and benefits of implementing a Registered Welding Apprenticeship Program.

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