Washington States' public Apprenticeship Registration and Tracking System, a shining transparency example

As we've described before, the U.S. apprenticeship system is made up of OA and SAA states.

All OA states use the Department of Labor's (DOL) online system for registering and tracking their apprentices called RAPIDS. Some of the SAA states even use this as well. RAPIDS is a private application for existing sponsors, but for some of an idea of what RAPIDS can do, read this article on how to use RAPIDS to register a new apprenticeship program.

A number of SAA states have their own systems. In Washington state, that system is called ARTS. ARTS has many logged in, private uses that we're not going to cover today.

We are, however, going to cover some of the public ARTS resources available to anyone that are published by Washington State's Department of Labor and Industry

Find an apprenticeship program

To find an apprenticeship program in Washington state could not be simpler. You use the public ARTS Find an Apprentice or Apprenticeship Program page.

https://secure.lni.wa.gov/arts-public/#/program-search

You can search by:

• Name

• County

• Occupation

For each result, you can see all of the core information about the apprenticeship program:

• Occupations

• Journey Wage

• Wage Schedule

• Program Duration

• Occupation Standards

• Contact Information

Take, for example, the AJAC, which is an advanced manufacturing apprenticeship program in the state. All of the information they've registered is visible:

https://secure.lni.wa.gov/arts-public/#/program-details?programId=2255&from=%2Fprogram-search

On that one page, you can see everything you'd want to know about the program AJAC runs. It might take a little bit of knowledge to decipher it, but that information is there. The full standard is even accessible, too:

https://www.lni.wa.gov/licensing-permits/apprenticeship/_docs/2255.pdf

Find employers

Now, maybe you're more interested in finding employers who work with the apprenticeship program rather than the apprenticeship, itself. ARTS can help there, too. There's a training agent / employer look up as well so you can see which employers work with which apprenticeship programs.

Here's an example of an apprenticeship program that works with the Healthcare Apprenticeship Consortium:

https://secure.lni.wa.gov/verify/Detail.aspx?UBI=600581555&LIC=&SAW=

This can often be more helpful for potential applicants because often, to get into an apprenticeship program, you're hired by the employer and only THEN offered the apprenticeship.

Find apprentices

Finally, maybe you're a contractor who works on public works projects, and you need to make sure you have enough apprentices working on your project for compliance purposes. Here again, you can simply use ARTS to answer that question for you:

https://secure.lni.wa.gov/arts-public/#/

We wont put any individual's results here, but you can immediately look up someone's status, how many OJT and RSI hours they've completed, and which program they're affiliated with.

Gold Standard in Information Transparency

There are so many apprenticeship programs and systems that treat this as confidential information. The lack of information, however, is a large reason why apprenticeship often acts in the shadows, or is referred to as the "best kept secret in workforce".

Washington's public ARTS resources are the complete opposite. This level of transparency into apprenticeship is a fantastic example of how to make the industry less of a secret and more accessible to all.