Wellness & Well-being Highlights July 14th
Wellness & Well-being Highlights
for the
Week of July 14, 2025
This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog looks at advice on the dangers of working in summer heat—to a breakthrough regarding non-opioid acute painkillers—to the UK Construction Industry’s effort to address sexual harassment. This week I would like to take a closer look at Trump’s attempt to expand apprenticeships by 1 million.[1]
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In an era where High School students are weighing the costs and benefits of attending college vs going to work, one must strike while the iron is hot. While the article linked below gives credit to the Obama Administration for priming the ‘apprenticeship’ pump, this effort was in the works long before 2009. As I said before in this blog, the greatest thing that ever happened to apprenticeship in the US is that Harvard’s School of Education studied the concept of earn while you learn. In 2011, Professor Bob Schwartz and his team published a groundbreaking report called, “Pathways to Prosperity.” Countless educators and politicians from the US went on study tours of Switzerland and Germany. In the interest of full disclosure, I participated in two of these events: 2006 and 2019. A major take-away was that both of these nations focus apprenticeships on what we consider the High School years. In fact, nearly, 70% of all High Schoolers there lean towards the apprenticeship track. The upside is that when students graduate, they are journey-level workers across +300 occupations. And, have options to complete related college degrees.
While setting a goal of 1 million is admirable, it probably is not realistic. Why? 1) Because for the past 40 years, parents—along with educators—have channeled the vast majority of our High Schoolers towards college. 2) There are not enough apprenticeship slots available. With respect to #1, Gen Zers are pushing back against the “college for all” model…so if this trend remains steady there is hope to reach the aforementioned goal. However, #2 remains the sticky wicket. Unless and until, the US adopts and adapts to the Youth Apprenticeship model (similar to Switzerland and Germany), the current version of post-secondary apprenticeship will remain the soup du jour. This will require a major mindset change for businesses. Currently, there are ~600k apprentices registered with the US-DOL. A good percentage of those are affiliated with the building trades. Again, to come close to nearly doubling the current pool, we need to cast a wider net so that more occupations are ready and willing to recruit and mentor apprentices.
My final words on this topic are clear and concise. We must not allow one group to take control of the Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) model…which I refer to as the gold standard. A main reason the St. Louis region is the envy of other major cities across the US when it comes to RAPs is the joint partnership between labor and management. For the past ~70 years, their goal has been and still remains to make sound decisions in the best interest of the apprentices!
Please check out the rest of this week’s blog: https://moworksinitiative.org/category/worker-wellness-news/
US Measles Cases @ 33-Year High
Trauma Therapist’s Tips: Anxiety
MAHA / Psychedelics / Wall Street
UK Construction: ~1200% Rise in Harassment Training
SCOTUS Allows Mass Fed Layoffs
Addressing “Sandwich Gens” Needs
TikTok / Youth / Construction Trades
Build UK & Construction Shortage
HR / Tailored Communication / Stress
School Board / Post-COVID / Threats
Court Blocks Unsubscribing Rule
Upcoming webinars, etc.:
Multi-lingual Stigma Awareness
NOTE: The links provided above are for informational purposes only. None of these serve as a substitute for medical advice one should obtain from his/her own primary care physician and/or mental health professional. Please contact jgaal@moworks.org with related questions or comments.
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