The U.S. Department of Labor has withdrawn an 800-page proposal to update the registered apprenticeship system that was unlikely to stand in the new administration.

The rule changes aimed to increase worker protections and quality by requiring better outcomes data, streamlining aspects of the process for creating apprenticeships, and making apprenticeship more compatible with K-12 and college education. The rules would have been the first regulatory update to the system since 2008—and proposed many changes experts have been calling for for years.

But many leaders at apprenticeship intermediaries and think-tanks—both pro-labor and employer-focused ones—felt the rules might make too much change at once and hamstring growth. A number of apprenticeship providers and Republicans in Congress were especially opposed to a provision that would have barred competency-based apprenticeships by requiring a minimum of 2K hours of on-the-job training.

The process was nevertheless helpful in drawing more attention to the fact that the apprenticeship system is in dire need of an update, says John Colborn, executive director of Apprenticeships for America (AFA).

What Now: Any changes will now fall to the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress.

To address what it saw as the limitations of the registered apprenticeship system, the first Trump administration simply did an end-run around it—creating an alternative employer-led system, the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP). But IRAP never really got off the ground before the Biden administration ended it amid concerns that it was duplicative and undermined worker protections.

AFA would like to avoid a repeat of that. And Colborn would like for any changes to come through the administration working with Congress, which hasn’t updated the National Apprenticeship Act since it passed in 1937. 

“The possibility here is to work with the administration and say, ‘What was IRAP trying to solve for, and how do we do that in the mainstream system?,’” Colborn says.

Organizations like JFF are urging a similar approach. 

Parting Thought: “President Trump has another chance to make apprenticeships a centerpiece of his workforce strategy,” Vanessa Bennett and Taylor Maag, who focus on apprenticeship at JFF, wrote in Work Shift this week.

“But if his administration wants to succeed, it should improve and expand the current system so more employers and workers can tap into its potential.”