US: Trump signs executive order on apprenticeships

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - The U.S.' President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aiming to add 4.5 million new apprenticeships in the country over the next five years.

Apprenticeship includes paid classroom instruction, on-the-job training, and provides participants with licenses in order to practice certain professions.

"We want to keep jobs in America, and we want to train people and hire American workers to fill those jobs," Trump said as he signed the "Apprenticeship and Workforce of Tomorrow" program.

Ivanka Trump, the daughter of and the assistant to the president, is reported to have worked with the executive order, which will remove federal restrictions that were viewed as impediments against forming apprenticeships for certain labor skills.

The new program, overseen by the Department of Labor, will cost an estimated $200 million and fill some six million vacant jobs in the country.

The apprenticeship system, which has been in place since the 1930s, was reinvigorated during former President Barack Obama's tenure.

Under the Obama administration, apprenticeships rose from approximately 350,000 in 2010 to its current level of a little over 500,000, according to the Department of Labor.