JFF issued a press release today announcing that the JFF Center for Apprenticeship & Work-Based Learning had received $12 million in new funding from the U.S. Department of Labor to expand apprenticeship in advanced manufacturing, with a specific goal of increasing the number of women and people of color in the industry’s workforce.

JFF believes it is particularly important to expand the gender, racial, and ethnic diversity of the manufacturing workforce at this point in time because the economic disruption brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in steep job losses that have disproportionately affected women and people of color.

“The current economic crisis is exacerbating longstanding equity gaps in the workforce,” said Eric Seleznow, senior advisor at JFF’s Center for Apprenticeship & Work-Based Learning. “Registered apprenticeships have the potential to dramatically expand pathways to economic mobility for high-skill, technical roles in industries like advanced manufacturing that will play a vital role in the economic recovery to come.”