Washington – Business Roundtable members Greg Case, President and CEO of Aon and Julie Sweet, CEO – North America of Accenture, today helped launch Apprenticeship 2020, a new $3.2M fund to scale high-quality, work-based learning programs in Chicago to support the Chicago Apprenticeship Network’s goal of hiring 1,000 apprentices over two years. Several foundations in the Chicago area are participating in this new initiative.
Apprenticeship 2020 is part of the Workforce Partnership Initiative (WPI) – a Business Roundtable-led partnership of CEOs and higher education organizations working together in key regions of the country to develop best-in-class training aligned with the needs of students, workers and businesses closest to home. Case and Sweet co-lead WPI for the Chicago region, in which JPMorgan Chase, BP and Walgreens Boots Alliance also participate. These training opportunities in the Chicago region include apprenticeships across a range of industry sectors, from cyber security and manufacturing to human resources, hospitality, insurance and retail.
“Our aim is to enlist more companies to join us in closing the skills and training gaps, which is why we recently unveiled an apprenticeship playbook to help companies jump-start their own programs,” wrote Case and Sweet in a recent op-ed published by The Washington Post. “By rallying employers to invest in apprenticeships, we can unleash the untapped potential of millions. We can better equip our businesses to compete in an age of dynamic change. And we can prepare the United States’ workforce for well-paying jobs that power today’s economy — and tomorrow’s.”
Aon and Accenture earlier co-created the Chicago Apprentice Network, which will work with Apprenticeship 2020 to expand apprenticeship opportunities citywide.
Also collaborating on Apprenticeship 2020 are JPMorgan Chase, Salesforce.org, The Joyce Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, Pritzker Traubert Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and others. As part of its efforts, Apprenticeship 2020 has made a $1.25M investment in City Colleges of Chicago to launch a new office of Apprenticeship & Workforce Solutions that will help employers develop apprenticeship programs, recruit students to apprenticeship opportunities and implement academic curriculum for apprenticeship and work-based learning programs.
Both WPI and Apprenticeship 2020 are part of larger nationwide efforts to create and expand pathways to prepare current and prospective employees to grow and succeed in their careers.
For more information on the Business Roundtable Workforce Partnership Initiative, click here. To read the Chicago Apprentice Network playbook, click here.
To learn more about Apprenticeship 2020, click here.