Employers Report Four Indirect Benefits of Youth Apprenticeship

The benefits of apprenticeship to young people are well documented: expanded sight lines into career pathways, stronger professional networks, technical and durable skills developed through real-world experience, and paid learning that provides agility in a competitive labor market. But what about everyone else in the room? When a young person walks through the doors of a company, some of the most significant transformations may not be their own. In interviews conducted with employers for this project, one employer reflected, there is profound organizational value in “getting to contribute to someone else’s success.” This analysis examines who else shares in that value and what it means for engaging companies in youth apprenticeship.

Youth apprenticeship in the United States is growing, backed by investment at the local, state, and national levels. As adoption expands, employers and researchers must determine how to measure return on investment (ROI) across youth-serving apprenticeships (ages 16–24). Variation in program delivery, company type, and employer motivation makes a standardized answer elusive. That variation, however, reveals an opportunity to examine the different reasons employers invest, including motivations and outcomes that traditional ROI frameworks tend to miss.

Research has made a strong case for apprenticeship, broadly, by quantifying direct benefits such as reduced employee turnover, increased productivity, and savings in hiring costs. Key research from the Urban Institute with partners and more recent research from Brookings, as well as state- and sector-specific ROI studies, consistently demonstrates these measurable benefits. While researchers have begun to quantify the quieter benefits of these programs, indirect benefits—such as improvements in organizational culture, employee engagement, and manager talent development—provide critical value back to the company and remain underexamined.

Most research on the ROI of apprenticeship has also focused on adult-serving models, leaving the value of youth-serving apprenticeships underexplored. We are aware of only one domestic report on this topic: the ROI Report–Rightsizing the Economics of Youth-Serving Apprenticeship, a study of CareerWise’s New York (CW NY) flagship site. The CW NY study suggests that indirect benefits may be even more pronounced in youth-serving models, where mentorship, training infrastructure, and talent development pathways play a central role.

These indirect returns on investment are often discussed in theory but rarely documented systematically, particularly for youth apprenticeship models. The interviews summarized here reveal the kinds of benefits employers experience, but that formal ROI studies may miss, such as developing supervisors, strengthening training practices, and fostering collaboration across teams. While these positive outcomes may not immediately translate into measurable financial returns, they can shape how organizations build and manage talent over time. Understanding these ancillary benefits helps provide a more complete picture of why employers continue to invest in youth apprenticeship, even when the business case is not captured fully by traditional metrics.

This qualitative project builds on prior research by examining how employers experience and interpret three categories of indirect benefits of youth-serving apprenticeship programs: employee engagement, improved organizational culture, and development of managers. Previous studies on the indirect benefits of youth apprenticeship models relied solely on surveys administered to employers. This interview project seeks to understand the impact of these indirect benefits through structured conversations with employers who participate in youth-serving apprenticeships.

We conducted interviews with staff members and managers from six companies offering training in IT and advanced manufacturing occupations from February through March 2026, analyzing responses to identify recurring patterns. Employers were recruited to reflect variation in firm characteristics (e.g., geography, size, and sector) while providing training in similar roles. All companies meet our minimum criteria of employing between two and 15 apprentices at any given time and having at least two years of experience with youth apprenticeship programs. We acknowledge that this is a small and self-selecting sample of experienced employers, which will shape their responses. The employers in this study are anonymized, with additional characteristics provided in the Appendix.

In our conversations with the six employers we selected, four consistent findings emerged regarding the indirect benefits of youth apprenticeship. These findings were consistent across industries, which suggests that they reflect core features of the youth apprenticeship model. While employers described these benefits as significant and often unexpected, they also emphasized that they are rarely measured formally.

Finding 1: Youth Apprenticeship Renews Purpose and Engagement at Work

Across all six companies, apprentices created renewed purpose among long-tenured staff by boosting employee morale, renewing engagement, and fostering a sense of shared purpose and pride. Employers consistently reported a noticeable shift in workplace energy when apprentices were present, with employees reporting greater enthusiasm and a stronger connection to work.

A distinctive dynamic emerged in which supervisors and colleagues invested deeply in apprentices’ growth and success. Several employers described this as a “proud parent” effect, in which employees took pride in milestones such as graduation, college acceptances, and career transitions. This effect extended beyond employees who were direct supervisors, to include coworkers and team members.

Employer representatives described how the environment at their companies changed. At one IT employer’s office, the atmosphere transformed daily at 1 pm when apprentices arrived. “People look forward to just breaking up with the malaise of full-time work and bringing in people who are generally excited to be here,” reported the program coordinator. An advanced manufacturing employer described a change in the workplace after implementing youth apprenticeship, saying, “There is a higher morale. And I feel like a lot of our leaders want to do better for our youth apprentices, like they want them to have a good experience, so they kind of go above and beyond. And I definitely think they do feel a sense of purpose.”

By creating opportunities for mentorship and meaningful contribution, apprenticeship programs appear to re-energize employees and strengthen their connection to the organization. A particularly important insight is the double-sided nature of this benefit: While apprenticeship is often framed as an investment in the learner, our conversations suggest that it is equally impactful for the mentor. Employees who share their craft or professional expertise appear to experience heightened engagement, renewed pride, and a stronger sense of purpose in their work. These effects span across generations of workers.

The positive impacts across mentors and other staff warrant further exploration in youth apprenticeship. They also raise questions for further inquiry, such as to what extent the mentor experience might influence incumbent worker retention or contribute to employer brand and reputation. Understanding and measuring these effects could significantly expand how employers and policymakers assess the full value of youth apprenticeship programs.

Finding 2: Youth Apprenticeship Provides Early Exposure to Managerial Experience

Manager development was identified by all employers as one of the most valuable and often unexpected benefits of youth apprenticeship. At some companies, apprentices provided junior staff with accelerated opportunities to develop supervisory skills, often years before they would typically manage direct reports.

At two companies employing IT apprentices, junior analysts and associates who would not otherwise have direct reports, given hierarchical team structures, were able to develop coaching, feedback, communication, and team-management skills. In this way, youth apprenticeship served not only as a talent pipeline strategy but also as a mechanism for managerial development. One IT employer coordinator now actively sells this to recruiting managers as “50 percent youth apprenticeship program, 50 percent junior supervisor development program.”

Several employers noted that team management skills extended beyond the apprenticeship context, improving how supervisors interacted with other team members. One manufacturing employer program lead put it simply: “By [being intentional with apprentices], they’ve started to do that with other employees as well.” Another manufacturing employer described how the apprenticeship “made a positive impact on me, both personally and professionally, as it’s taught me a different level of empathy, patience, teaching, and training techniques.” These skills and techniques translate across the company, not just in communicating and working with apprentices.

Apprentice mentors across companies gained valuable managerial skills they likely would not have gained without the youth apprenticeship. In broader apprenticeship research, manager development tends to rank as a “middle of the pack” indirect benefit. In contrast, it emerges as a top-tier outcome in youth-serving models, which is strongly reinforced by our conversations with managers and staff members at the six companies we selected for this project. The youth apprenticeship training structure might create valuable development opportunities at multiple levels of the company, both for early-career talent receiving mentorship and supervision and for managers, who build leadership skills through accelerated or expanded experience.

The types of skills described by our interviewees, including coaching, communication, empathy, feedback, and adaptive teaching, are the same competencies being cultivated in apprentices through on-the-job training. These durable, human-centered skills are increasingly recognized as critical for professional resilience in the age of AI, where they differentiate performance at both entry and managerial levels. Youth apprenticeship could offer a rare, dual-impact model that builds these competencies across multiple levels of the organization simultaneously. This finding raises important considerations for employers and workforce leaders seeking to expand strategies that develop resilient, future-ready talent pipelines across their companies and sectors.

Finding 3: Youth Apprenticeship Sparks Collaboration Within and Beyond the Company

Youth apprenticeship was found to generate organizational value by fostering collaboration across multiple levels: within teams, across departments, with partner institutions, and, in several cases, across regional or national employer networks. Companies reported that apprentices bring curiosity, fresh perspectives, and questions that break up the workplace routine. These new ideas prompted the re-examination of processes and accelerated knowledge sharing at some companies.

One IT employer talked about how apprentices bring new perspectives, saying, “The best part about [apprenticeship] is it brings in such a different culture.” They added, “some of my team is slightly older. A lot of the students that come in, they’re young, so they’re bringing in this entirely different mindset, or a different point of view that we may not have had. So it allows us to evaluate problems in a different way.” Another IT employer described the importance of new questions. He said, apprentices “just ask great questions about, like, why does this work the way it does? Kind of opening [employees’] eyes to maybe more efficient ways to do things.”

One advanced manufacturing employer said that developing a youth apprenticeship also improved coordination across departments because staff members recognized the need for shared responsibility. She stated, “Folks in that group that they would work with…all started to collaborate more effectively, because they kind of realized, …‘If we’re going to give them a good experience, like, we need to be on the same page.’”

Collaboration as a result of launching and implementing a youth apprenticeship extended beyond their organization for three employers that we interviewed. Two advanced manufacturing employers reported impacts across the community and the regional ecosystem as a result of implementing a youth apprenticeship program. One advanced manufacturing employer initiated an apprenticeship in the region and, as a result, watched the local community college expand from one to 16 apprenticeship programs. “It completely changed the local community college approach to career education,” this employer said. Another advanced manufacturing employer piloted a youth apprenticeship and helped spark a regional network that grew to 85 new apprentices in a single year. One IT employer’s program has become part of a United States-Switzerland apprenticeship exchange, connecting its cohort to a global movement.

These examples suggest that the presence of apprentices and the development of a quality apprenticeship program encourage companies to break down silos, strengthen communication, and form new partnerships that extend beyond their own organization. While employers we interviewed did not explicitly frame this external collaboration as a systems change, such cooperation and network-building often signal ecosystem transformation.

Finding 4: Youth Apprenticeship Raises the Bar for Training

Among both advanced manufacturing and IT employers we talked to, the training of youth apprentices, which often requires more structured and accessible learning than that of adult learners, prompted employers to reassess and strengthen their training programs. All six companies, regardless of size, industry, or program maturity, reported improvements in their training infrastructure. Across all of our interviews, this was the most concrete and consistently reported indirect benefit of youth apprenticeship.

Employers reported that existing materials were often too advanced or insufficiently structured for their youth apprentices. In response to this need, they developed new curricula, onboarding processes, and skill development frameworks. One IT employer explained, “The starting point was just too far up—not only for our apprentices. It got to a point where managers were literally buying college textbooks for their apprentices.” This employer added, “We need to make training more accessible in case people want to change careers or different things down the line.”

After redesigning or adding new training infrastructure, companies found that these new materials and structures also benefited new hires and junior staff and began using them more broadly once they were developed. For one IT employer, “It’s made us more formalized on our training culture, not just for youth apprentices, but for new employee onboarding. We’ve taken that model and everything we’re doing for an apprentice—it’s the same for a new employee. It’s really saved us a lot of time on onboarding.”

One manufacturing employer explained that the Registered Apprenticeship framework itself provided leaders with a structured way to think about skills development that they did not have before. One company leader reflected, “Without our apprenticeship structure, [leaders] aren’t thinking about that hardly at all.”

All four findings (summarized in Table 1) discussed here suggest that youth apprenticeship does more than improve training quality; it also drives operational efficiencies and strategic alignment in training infrastructure. As a result of redesigning training infrastructure, employers described faster, more consistent onboarding processes, which in some cases could lead to cost savings by reducing ramp-up time and reliance on ad hoc training. At the same time, the shift toward clearer skill frameworks and progression pathways aligned with apprenticeship models brings the movement toward skills-based hiring into day-to-day operations, making it more practical and measurable. Lastly, the infrastructure developed for apprentices in several cases became the foundation for upskilling incumbent workers, giving employers a more systematic approach to talent development across their organizations.

Across all six companies, the indirect benefits of youth apprenticeship are clearly visible and highly valued, but almost never formally tracked or measured. When asked whether cultural impacts were “measured or observed,” every company answered that they were observed, but that existing measurement instruments and data collection do not accurately capture employee engagement, manager development, collaboration, or organizational training infrastructure. This answer reinforces findings from prior ROI studies, which note the challenge of quantifying indirect benefits, and it contributes early evidence that these benefits are indeed real and valuable.

Several employers expressed a desire to start measuring these impacts more systematically. The desire for measurement signals both a gap in current practice and an opportunity for intermediaries and researchers to develop tools that help employers capture indirect value more effectively.

Here are three recommendations from our conversations with employers training youth apprentices.

Develop Tools to Measure Indirect Benefits

To ensure that the indirect benefits of youth apprenticeship can be captured and quantified, intermediaries, employers, and researchers should develop lightweight tools, such as employer surveys and manager self-assessments, to help organizations systematically track changes in staff engagement, manager readiness, and collaboration. When paired with existing employer performance tools, these tools could generate the data needed to better quantify the indirect benefits of youth apprenticeship. Doing so could strengthen the case for broader adoption of youth apprenticeships and give stakeholders actionable insights to improve and expand their programs.

Building a broader evidence base is essential to developing models that are not only effective but also scalable across a wide range of employers and markets. Expanding access to data-collection tools will strengthen our collective understanding of where conditions are most favorable for expanding youth apprenticeship and how employers across sectors can maximize its value.

Position Apprenticeship as a Dual Investment

Intermediaries and employers should explicitly position youth apprenticeship as a strategic learning and development (L&D) investment that simultaneously addresses two critical talent populations: early career workers and managers, both new and incumbent. While youth apprenticeship is traditionally positioned as an entry-level talent pipeline, our interviews show that its benefits extend up the organizational chart, with supervisors reporting meaningful gains in a suite of durable skills essential to company agility, especially in the age of AI and automation.

This benefit is strongly supported by our interviews but underemphasized in ROI literature. By positioning youth apprenticeship as an L&D strategy, rather than solely a recruitment or pipeline tool, stakeholders can broaden its appeal to decision-makers focused on talent development, succession planning, and organizational performance. Critically, this reframing also positions youth apprenticeship as the first step in a continuum of professional learning, a model that has been the cornerstone of apprenticeship systems abroad. Translating a continuum of professional development to the U.S. context may be one of the most important tools for building the workforce this moment demands.

Align Policy with the Full Value Proposition

Policymakers and funders should align incentives with the true cost structure of youth apprenticeship, recognizing both its direct expenses and its often overlooked benefits. Prior studies cite the time supervisors spend with apprentices as one of the highest costs of the program. Yet our project shows that those same supervisors are simultaneously developing their skills in coaching, communication, and delegation, and that organizations often strengthen their training practices in the process of implementing youth apprenticeship. These indirect benefits are rarely measured or incorporated into policy design, but they can offset some of the perceived burden, suggesting that not all commonly cited costs represent a new strain on the employers. A more accurate accounting of youth apprenticeship must therefore distinguish between costs mitigated by these gains and those that still require targeted policy support.

Supporting employers in maximizing the full value of youth apprenticeship will require a thoughtful mix of policy incentives that reflect its true costs and returns. Policymakers might explore sector partnerships that strengthen training operations and foster cross-institutional collaboration. Group training models, proven effective in leading apprenticeship systems abroad, offer a promising way to distribute costs and coordinate between employers while building shared capacity. Direct supports, such as wage subsidies extended to supervisors, could further reduce barriers in industries where head count pressures are most acute. Together, these incentives could shift youth apprenticeship from a cost employers absorb to an investment they are motivated to sustain and scale.

Youth apprenticeship, and apprenticeship in general, is typically evaluated through a narrow ROI lens focused on financial value that includes productivity gains, hiring costs, or retention. Although such measures are important, they tell only part of the story. For the employers we interviewed, the most meaningful returns were not always the easiest to quantify, such as renewed purpose among staff, accelerated development of managers, increased collaboration, and the strengthening of training infrastructure. These are not marginal outcomes; they are central to how organizations build and support talent over time.

While our project draws on a small interview sample, the four findings discussed by all six companies point to a shift that youth apprenticeship can be understood as not simply a pipeline strategy, but as a catalyst for organizational learning and development. As investment in youth apprenticeship grows, what and how we measure will shape what we value. Without tools to capture these indirect benefits, we risk undervaluing its use as both a pathway for young people and a mechanism for building stronger, more adaptive organizations.

From February through March 2026, we interviewed staff members in management and leadership roles from six companies implementing IT and advanced manufacturing youth apprenticeships. We completed seven interviews, including two from the same organization. The 60-minute sessions featured one to four interviewees from the companies. They were conducted by at least one New America staff member and/or one or more CareerWise staff members via Zoom. They followed a semi-structured protocol, and transcriptions and notes were analyzed using thematic coding to identify patterns across employers. As a qualitative study with a small sample size, the findings are illustrative rather than generalizable, but they provide a window into how employers experience indirect benefits of youth apprenticeship.

We selected employers from two sectors: advanced manufacturing (an established youth apprenticeship sector) and information technology (an emerging occupation). This allowed for comparison across varying levels of program maturity and occupational structure. We chose employers that had two to 15 apprentices at any given time and had at least two years of experience with youth apprenticeship programs.

The employers in this study are anonymized, and Table 2 describes their organization size, location, and specialization.

New America would like to thank our Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) funders. PAYA is supported by funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, JPMorgan Chase & Co., the Siemens Foundation, the Smidt Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.

Thanks to Braden Goetz, Erica Simon, and Taylor White for thoughtful feedback and helpful suggestions and to Whitney Allen for project collaboration and co-leading the interviews. Thanks to Katherine Portnoy, Lillian Castrillon, Amanda Dean, and Sabrina Detlef for communication support, data visualization, and copyediting.