Prohibiting Illegal Discrimination in Registered Apprenticeship Programs

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Employment and Training Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>29 CFR Parts 29 and 30</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. ETA-2025-0006]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1205-AC21</RIN> <SUBJECT>Prohibiting Illegal Discrimination in Registered Apprenticeship Programs</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Employment and Training Administration, Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule, request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Labor (DOL or the Department) is issuing this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to remove undue regulatory burdens on registered apprenticeship program sponsors. The Department's proposal would rescind certain regulatory provisions that it believes are unlawful. It also includes conforming, technical changes to the Department's regulation that addresses Labor Standards for the Registration of Apprenticeship Programs. This proposed rule would streamline and simplify sponsors' obligations, while maintaining broad and effective nondiscrimination protections for apprentices and those seeking entry into apprenticeship programs. A brief summer of this document may be found at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> by searching by the RIN 1205-AC21. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Interested persons are invited to submit written comments on the proposed rule on or before September 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, identified by Docket No. ETA-2025-0006 and Regulatory Identification Number (RIN) 1205-AC21, by any of the following methods: <E T="03">Federal Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Search for the above-referenced RIN, open the proposed rule, and follow the on-screen instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the agency name and docket number for this rulemaking or “RIN 1205-AC21.” Please be advised that the Department will post comments received that relate to this proposed rule to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. The <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website is the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal and all comments posted there are available and accessible to the public. Please do not submit comments containing trade secrets, confidential or proprietary commercial or financial information, personal health information, sensitive personally identifiable information (for example, social security numbers, driver's license or state identification numbers, passport numbers, or financial account numbers), or other information that you do not want to be made available to the public. Should the agency become aware of such information, the agency reserves the right to redact or refrain from posting sensitive information, libelous, or otherwise inappropriate comments, including those that contain obscene, indecent, or profane language; that contain threats or defamatory statements; or that contain hate speech. Please note that depending on how information is submitted, the agency may not be able to redact the information and instead reserves the right to refrain from posting the information or comment in such situations. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents, comments received, or the plain-language summary of the proposed rule of not more than 100 words in length required by the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act of 2023, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> (search using RIN 1205-AC21 or Docket No. ETA-2025-0006). If you need assistance to review the comments, contact the Office of Policy Development and Research at 202-693-3700 (this is not a toll-free number). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Luke Murren, Acting Administrator, Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Room N-5641, Washington, DC 20210, Telephone: 202-693-3700 (voice) (this is not a toll-free number). For persons with a hearing or speech disability who need assistance using the telephone system, please dial 711 to access telecommunications relay services. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Preamble Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Introduction to Registered Apprenticeship and the National Apprenticeship System</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Regulatory History of the 29 CFR Part 30 Regulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Need for the Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Central Goals of the Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Revising the 29 CFR Part 30 Regulation To Remove Requirements Conflicting With Nondiscrimination Laws</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2"> B. Implementation of Recent Executive Orders Pertaining to Federal Regulations and Apprenticeship </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Accelerating Growth of the National Apprenticeship System</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Section-by-Section Discussion of this Proposed Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Part 30 Revisions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Part 29 Technical and Conforming Edits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review), 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review), and 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act, Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, and Executive Order 13272 (Proper Consideration of Small Entities in Agency Rulemaking)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Congressional Review Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 13132 (Federalism)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 13175 (Indian Tribal Governments)</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Registered Apprenticeship</HD> For nearly a century, registered apprenticeship has stood as a foundational, employer-led model of workforce development anchored in private sector leadership and real-world skill development that accelerates the recruitment, training, and retention of highly proficient workers in the skilled occupations employers need. This training model supports the development of high quality, skilled workers without the high cost or inefficiencies often associated with traditional academic pathways. Registered apprenticeship offers a high-quality, industry-driven career pathway in which employers can develop and prepare their future workforce, and individuals can obtain paid work experience with a mentor and receive progressive wage increases; classroom instruction; and a portable, nationally recognized credential. Registered apprenticeship programs are industry-vetted and are approved and validated by DOL or a State Apprenticeship Agency (SAA). Employers and industry stakeholders continuously refine the registered apprenticeship model to meet the changing workforce system demands and emerging skills needs. Apprentices gain affordable, hands-on training while earning wages and receiving guidance from qualified journeyworkers. Program sponsors use registered apprenticeship to build a skilled, job-ready workforce that enhances their competitiveness and yields strong returns on investment. According to the Common Reporting Information System, individuals who complete registered apprenticeship programs earn an average annual salary of approximately $84,000, exceeding the average earnings of associate degree holders, which range from $50,000 to $56,000 per year. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Employers also report positive outcomes resulting from their participation in registered apprenticeship; for example, an Abt Associates report that surveyed employers who participate in registered apprenticeship found that registered apprenticeship programs delivered a return on investment of 44 percent, reduce staff turnover, boost productivity, and strengthen the talent pipeline. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration/Kansas Department of Commerce, Common Reporting Information System (CRIS), FY2025 Q1 publication, retrieved Feb. 7, 2025. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Daniel Kuehn, Sonia M. De La Rosa, Robert I. Lerman, and Kevin Hollenbeck, Abt Associates and Urban Institute, “Do Employers Earn Positive Returns to Investments in Apprenticeship? Evidence from Registered Programs under the American Apprenticeship Initiative,” 2022, <E T="03">https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OASP/evaluation/pdf/AAI/AAI_ROI_Final_Report_508_9-2022.pdf.</E> </FTNT> Registered apprenticeship programs also yield a 90 percent employment retention rate, indicating that most graduates remain in the workforce after completing their training. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Over the course of their careers, registered apprenticeship completers earn more than $300,000 (including benefits) above what their non-apprentice peers earn on average, highlighting the long-term economic advantage of this training model. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  CRIS, FY2025 Q1 publication, supra note 1. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Kevin Hollenbeck, Mathematica Policy Research, “An Effectiveness Assessment and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Registered Apprenticeship in 10 States,” 2012. </FTNT> Registered apprenticeship programs are voluntarily sponsored by a wide range of organizations, including employers of all sizes—among them Federal, State, and local governments, employers groups, associations, joint labor-management organizations, workforce intermediaries, and educational institutions. Together, these stakeholders compr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 199k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━