Build the Apprenticeship, Win the Veteran

The money already on the table

A transitioning service member, three months from separating, is looking at two job listings in Norfolk, VA.

Both listings are for welders at ship-repair yards, and both pay the same wage. One of them is a Registered Apprenticeship approved for veterans’ education benefits, which means that alongside that wage they would draw a monthly housing allowance from the Department of Veterans Affairs — $2,430 a month at the Norfolk rate, tax-free, paid straight to them. The other listing is the job and nothing else.

They take the first one. So would anyone.

Nothing about that allowance touches the employer’s payroll. VA pays it directly to the apprentice for the length of the program, and what it is worth tracks the cost of the place where training happens: about $1,191 a month in the least expensive parts of the country, $2,430 in Norfolk, and more than $5,100 in the most expensive metros. Location is what sets that rate. It does not track the apprentice’s former pay grade or whether they have dependents, and the one personal factor that can scale it is their benefit tier, set by length of qualifying service.

VA sets the figure from one fixed formula: the Defense Department’s housing allowance for an E-5 with dependents in the ZIP code where training happens, applied the same way to every apprentice regardless of the record they separated with. VA then pays 100% of it through the first six months and steps down every six months to 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% as the apprentice’s own wage climbs with demonstrated skill. That schedule puts the heaviest support in the low-wage early months, when an apprentice is likeliest to walk away. For the welder in Norfolk it comes to about $26,200 across the first year and roughly $40,800 over a two-year program.

That produces two advantages for the employer who posted the first listing. The wage on the requisition stays where it is, and the role is worth more to an eligible veteran than that wage alone suggests, which puts the work on the hiring manager: say plainly in the posting and in the interview that the program is a Registered Apprenticeship approved for VA education benefits, and point the candidate to the monthly housing allowance they could draw while they train. A candidate who understands that can weigh it, and none of it costs the employer additional spend. A competitor who skipped the approvals has nothing equivalent to point at, and closing the gap means finding the difference in their own margin.

Federal money works the other side of the ledger too. On-the-job-training reimbursement under WIOA Title I commonly covers around half the apprentice’s wage through the training period, the American Manufacturing Apprenticeship Incentive Fund pays $3,500 for each advanced-manufacturing apprentice who clears a 90-day probationary period, and most states add an apprenticeship tax credit of their own, running from about $750 to $7,500 per apprentice a year depending on the state. None of these is automatic and no employer receives all of them, which is why the exhibit below lets you switch each one off. They apply to any registered apprentice rather than to veterans specifically: the veteran-specific advantage is the allowance, and these reduce what it costs to train whoever fills it.

Your inputs

Monthly housing allowance Set by training location alone. VA uses the E-5-with-dependents BAH figure for that ZIP code whatever the apprentice's own pay grade or dependent status. Look yours up → $ Starts at VA's published national average MHA of $2,522. Apprentice starting wage Annual, what you would pay in year one. $ Program length Every dollar figure below is a total across this term, not an annual figure. 12 months 24 months 36 months 48 months Veteran's benefit tier Share of the full rate they qualify for. 100% — 36+ months served 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40%

Offsets you qualify for

Availability varies by state, sector and year. Switch off anything that does not apply to you.

On-the-job-training reimbursement % of wage for months

Federal per-apprentice incentive $ once (advanced manufacturing, after 90 days)

State apprenticeship tax credit $ a year (a few states use a grant instead)

What the veteran receives

—

—

Your wage plus the VA housing allowance across the first twelve months. The allowance is heaviest here, at 100% of the rate and then 80%, which is what the candidate is comparing against a job with no program behind it.

What it costs you, net

—

—

Wage cost across the first twelve months after the offsets you selected, which is where most of them land. Wages only; mentor time and classroom cost sit outside this figure.

Money you pay Money you don't Reclaimed through offsets

Housing allowance by period of the apprenticeship

Period	Rate	VA / month	Your wage / month	Total / month

Assumptions, and what this does not model

The allowance. VA's published schedule for on-the-job training and apprenticeships pays 100% of the applicable housing allowance for months 1–6, then 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20% for each subsequent six-month period. The rate is the Defense Department's BAH for an E-5 with dependents at the ZIP code where training takes place. It is a fixed formula, so the apprentice's own pay grade, dependent status and home address do not change it; only the training location does. The default is VA's published national average MHA for the rate year running 1 August 2026 to 31 July 2027, $2,522 — the same figure VA uses to cap the allowance for training at a foreign institution, and half of which it pays for training taken solely online. Individual rates come from the DoD BAH tables behind it and run that year from roughly $1,191 a month to more than $5,100. Check the current figure at the VA rate page.

The offsets. On-the-job-training reimbursement under WIOA Title I is commonly around 50% of wages during the training period, arranged through an American Job Center; both the rate and the covered months are set locally, which is why they are editable here. The federal per-apprentice incentive shown is the $3,500 available through the American Manufacturing Apprenticeship Incentive Fund, managed by the Arkansas Office of Skills Development under a cooperative agreement with the Department of Labor. It covers more than 120 advanced-manufacturing occupations, is open to sponsors nationally, and pays per apprentice who completes a 90-day probationary period rather than at registration. The state incentive is a different instrument. Most states deliver theirs as an income tax credit, from roughly $750 to $7,500 per apprentice a year, and a credit is worth its face value, reducing tax owed dollar for dollar, where a cash reimbursement counts as income and nets out below the amount received. It does need tax liability to work against and it lands at filing rather than during training; several states cap the annual total or require carryforward, and a few deliver support as a grant or as tuition assistance instead. How it applies depends on the state's rules and your own tax position. No employer receives all of these, and some cannot be combined for the same registration.

Not modelled. The net figure covers wages only, so mentor time, related classroom instruction and administration sit outside it. The allowance is reduced for months in which the apprentice works fewer than 120 hours. Post-9/11 entitlement is finite and is charged while the allowance is paid, so a long program can outlast the benefit. And the allowance requires State Approving Agency approval in each state where apprentices train.

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit is not included: its authorization ran through 31 December 2025 and it lapsed at that date.

These are projections from published rates rather than quotes. Individual eligibility is determined by the VA, and incentive awards by the administering agency.

Enter the housing allowance for your training location and the wage you would pay, set your program length, then switch off any offset that does not apply to you. Every figure is a total across the program, not an annual figure, and both ledgers share one dollar scale.

Allowance step-down and the location-only E-5-with-dependents rate basis: VA, Post-9/11 GI Bill rates for on-the-job training and apprenticeships; $2,522 default is VA's published national average MHA for the 2026–27 rate year; individual rates from DoD BAH, revised annually. Offsets: WIOA Title I on-the-job-training reimbursement; American Manufacturing Apprenticeship Incentive Fund ($3,500 per apprentice after a 90-day probationary period, advanced manufacturing), administered by the Arkansas Office of Skills Development under a cooperative agreement with U.S. DOL; state apprenticeship tax credits, per apprenticeship.gov's state-by-state listing. Projections from published rates, not quotes.

At the national-average rate, a veteran eligible at the full benefit level draws roughly $42,000 across a two-year apprenticeship. A civilian apprentice in the same seat draws nothing comparable, because the housing allowance stacks only on a veteran’s education benefit. That makes the role fillable by the one group of candidates who arrive with a federally funded raise already attached, at a net wage cost well below what the same hire would carry outside a Registered Apprenticeship.

An incentive some employers will expect to see is missing from that exhibit. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which for years provided a federal credit of up to $9,600 for a qualifying veteran hire, lapsed after 31 December 2025 and is not currently available. Congress has reauthorized it retroactively after previous lapses, so it may return. Build the business case without it.

The exhibit holds your wage constant on both sides, and the real position is better than that. Federal regulation requires a Registered Apprenticeship to carry a progressively increasing wage schedule, so in practice an apprentice usually starts below the fully-qualified rate for the occupation. The allowance covers that gap. It lets you pay a genuine training wage while the veteran’s total monthly income stays competitive: lower payroll cost through the training years and a more attractive offer, at the same time. That is the version to take to whoever approves the budget.

Why almost nobody claims it

There is a measurable answer to how much of this goes unused. In the Urban Institute’s analysis, only 1% of GI Bill education benefits went to on-the-job training and apprenticeship.

Urban read that as a demand problem: if veterans are not spending a benefit, the benefit probably is not attractive enough to spend. We read it differently, and our own numbers are why. A veteran cannot spend the benefit on a role nobody registered and approved, and the approval problem described below is substantial enough to account for a good deal of that 1%. Where the program does exist and someone puts the advantage in front of the talent, veterans arrive at several times the national rate, which is the figure in section 4. Both readings can be partly right. The one an employer can do something about is the supply of approved programs.

So the question worth answering is why an employer facing a skilled-labor shortage has not already built one.

The two halves are approved by different agencies, and an employer has to clear both. The two bodies have nearly the same name. A State Apprenticeship Agency registers the apprenticeship, or the federal Office of Apprenticeship does it directly in the states without one. A State Approving Agency approves the GI Bill benefit, from a different part of state government entirely.

Sequence matters as well, because the second approval depends on the first. The federal regulation governing veterans’ apprenticeship benefits, 38 CFR 21.4261, allows “the appropriate State approving agency” to approve a course of apprentice training only where the program already meets the apprenticeship standards published by the Secretary of Labor. Registration has to exist before benefit approval can be sought. The second waits on the first, in every state, on two federal calendars.

Select the states you operate in

State apprenticeship agency Federal Office of Apprenticeship All 51 Clear

AK AL AR AZ CA CO CT DC DE FL GA HI IA ID IL IN KS KY LA MA MD ME MI MN MO MS MT NC ND NE NH NJ NM NV NY OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VA VT WA WI WV WY

Registering, state by state

0

Separate registrations if you file in each state individually.

Or one national standard

0

A National Program Standard registered with the federal Office of Apprenticeship covers every state at once. Registration consolidates.

GI Bill approvals — unavoidable

0

One State Approving Agency approval per state where apprentices train. This number never consolidates.

Select a state to see what it would take.

Which authority governs which state

State apprenticeship agency (30 of the 51 shown)

Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.

Federal Office of Apprenticeship (21 of the 51 shown)

Alaska, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming.

Counting all jurisdictions, 32 have a recognized state apprenticeship agency and 27 are served directly by the federal Office of Apprenticeship; the difference from the figures above is the eight territories, which are not shown in the grid. The Office of Apprenticeship may also register programs in some circumstances in states that have their own agency.

Select the states you operate in. Registration consolidates into a single National Program Standard; GI Bill approval does not.

Registration authority by jurisdiction: U.S. DOL Office of Apprenticeship, state offices — 32 jurisdictions have a recognized state apprenticeship agency, 27 are served directly by the federal Office of Apprenticeship. Approval authority for apprenticeship under the GI Bill: 38 CFR 21.4261. There are 53 State Approving Agencies covering the states and several territories (NASAA).

The second approval is where employers lose the benefit. A company can do the harder half correctly, standing up a real Registered Apprenticeship, registering it and running it to standard, and still deliver a veteran nothing from Exhibit 1, because nobody sought the GI Bill approval. The program itself works perfectly well; the recruiting advantage is simply absent, and most employers in that position have no idea it is missing.

Exhibit 2 shows why this bites hardest at scale. Registration consolidates: one National Program Standard, filed with the federal Office of Apprenticeship, replaces separate filings in every state. GI Bill approval follows the apprentices instead, state by state, wherever they train. The familiar half of the problem gets easier as an employer grows. The half carrying the recruiting advantage gets harder in a straight line.

That asymmetry is what makes the advantage defensible. It is public information, freely available to anyone who goes looking, and it stays unclaimed because finishing the paperwork costs more administrative patience than most employers have.

What you are building

Under 29 CFR Part 29, a Registered Apprenticeship is a defined structure: paid employment from day one, structured on-the-job learning under a mentor, related classroom instruction, a wage schedule that rises with demonstrated skill, and a nationally recognized credential at completion. Our companion brief sets those five elements against a military enlistment in its own Exhibit 3.

The evidence behind the model is strong for a workforce program. The Department of Labor puts employer return at $1.47 for every dollar invested, in increased productivity, reduced waste and greater front-line innovation, and reports that 91% of apprentices remain employed after completing their programs. Nearly all firms in DOL’s survey work reported reduced turnover and better talent pipelines. Turnover is the largest hidden cost in any skilled workforce, and this model measurably reduces it.

A narrower question comes first, though: can the roles you actually need filled be apprenticeships at all?

On paper the field looks wide open: the Department of Labor’s apprenticeable-occupations list runs to roughly 1,500 entries. Most of those entries are program variations, specialty branches, branded sponsor titles and historical standards. Collapse them to distinct civilian occupations and the actively-used universe comes to somewhere near 50 or 60, across seven industry clusters.

That sounds like a setback and turns out to be the opposite, because of where the surviving occupations sit.

Pick your sector

Construction trades Transportation and logistics Manufacturing and industrial maintenance Healthcare IT, cyber and AI Public safety Service and other

Apprenticeable occupations

58

Across all seven industry clusters — not the ~1,500 the DOL list appears to offer.

On the skilled and licensed rungs

—

The rungs a military record already clears, per the companion brief.

Annual openings on those rungs

—

Growth plus replacement across all BLS occupations on these rungs — the labor market these roles sit in, not the apprenticeable ones alone.

Show the full list

Occupation	SOC	Rung

Occupations are the DOL Office of Apprenticeship apprenticeable list collapsed to distinct BLS Standard Occupational Classification codes — roughly 50 to 80 once program variations, branded sponsor titles and historical entries are removed. Rung pay and openings are pooled across every BLS occupation in the rung, so a rung figure sits below the credentialed occupations most often cited from it. Occupations marked Licensed / certified may require a state licence or an industry certification to qualify fully, which the apprenticeship is a route toward rather than a substitute for. Requirements are set by the state or the certifying body, so check them for the occupations and states you operate in.

Select a sector to see its apprenticeable occupations and where each sits on the qualification ladder. Occupations on the licensed rung may also require a state licence or industry certification to qualify fully.

Occupations: DOL Office of Apprenticeship apprenticeable list collapsed to distinct BLS SOC codes (Fastport RA-Eligible SOC Universe). Rung assignment: Semper Forward five-tier crosswalk. Rung openings: BLS Employment Projections 2024–34 annual average openings, growth plus replacement, pooled across every BLS occupation on the rung.

Nine in ten of these occupations sit on the skilled and licensed rungs of the labor market. Those are the same rungs our companion brief found a combat-arms record already clears, or sits one paid apprenticeship step away from. The apprenticeable field and the veteran-qualified field are very nearly the same field. Both are defined by demonstrated hands-on competence, which explains the overlap and explains why this strategy works at all.

A careful reader of that companion brief will already be forming an objection.

Who fills it

The shortage behind all of this is demographic and well established. The generation staffing the country’s hangars, truck cabs, shipyards and factory floors is retiring faster than the training pipeline behind it can replace them, across aviation, transportation, shipbuilding and the defense industrial base. Our companion brief, The Combat-Arms Discount, measures each sector and argues that the roughly 200,000 service members who separate every year are the best-matched supply for it. This brief takes the shortage as given.

An employer can accept all of this and still doubt the supply. The test is whether anyone puts veterans into these programs at a rate that beats the market, and there is a number for it.

Most of that gap comes down to access rather than appetite. A veteran cannot spend the benefit on a role nobody registered and approved, which makes a portfolio of approved programs the precondition for everything else: where the programs exist and the approvals are in place, veterans turn up in them at several times the national share. Those apprentices arrived through the full range of routes employers and sponsors use, and the figure describes the portfolio rather than any one recruiting channel.

Standing the programs up is also quicker than most employers assume once the intermediary relationship exists. The avionics apprenticeship standard Fastport registered in March 2026 had five employers engaged inside twenty-four hours.

Filling the seats is separate work, and it is where a recruiting partner earns its keep. Semper Forward reaches service members before they separate, as a named partner under the DOL VETS Employment Navigator and Partnership Program, a DoD SkillBridge memorandum-of-understanding holder, and through TAP offices and the Military Spouse Employment Partnership. Each candidate works with a named coach who reads the military record and explains a benefit that a self-service job board would never surface.

Where this talent separates, and whether any of it lands near the places you hire, is the one question this brief does not try to answer. Separations cluster around a relatively small number of installations, so the overlap with any particular employer’s footprint runs anywhere from substantial to negligible, and which one it is reshapes the recruiting plan. Answering it takes installation-level data read against your specific locations, which is why a brief written for an unnamed reader stops here.

Getting started

Expanding Registered Apprenticeship is current national policy with money behind it, rather than a standing program an employer has to go find. Executive Order 14278 set a national goal of one million active apprentices in April 2025, and the Department of Labor has put roughly $300 million behind it since.

Two features of that spending matter more to an employer than the headline total. The first is how specific it is. The $162 million awarded in July 2026 names shipbuilding, the defense industrial base, emerging technology, telecommunications, IT and automotive, and pays on outcomes rather than enrolment, tying money to apprentice retention and progression. At least 85% of each award flows to Registered Apprenticeship sponsors, so it reaches an employer through whoever registers their program. If you operate in one of those sectors, the funding is pointed at you by name.

Then there is where the rest of it goes. Pre-apprenticeship funding is not money an employer claims, and its value sits elsewhere: it pays other organisations to prepare candidates who then need a registered program to enter. Read the four lines together and the government is funding the sponsors who register programs, the employers who host apprentices in advanced manufacturing, and the providers who feed candidates in at the front. Support at three points in the same pipeline is a different signal from a single grant, and it is the relevant one for anyone weighing a multi-year commitment.

Action	Detail	Source
Executive Order 14278	National goal to reach and surpass one million active apprentices, and to expand apprenticeship into new and high-growth industries.	The White House, April 2025
$162M, Pay-for-Performance Incentive Payments	Ties funding to apprentice retention and progression milestones in shipbuilding, the defense industrial base, emerging technology, telecommunications, IT and automotive. At least 85% of each award flows directly to Registered Apprenticeship sponsors across all states and territories.	U.S. DOL, 7 July 2026
$35.8M American Manufacturing Apprenticeship Incentive Fund	$3,500 for each apprentice who completes a 90-day probationary period, across more than 120 advanced-manufacturing occupations including shipbuilding and maritime, aerospace and defense, automotive, semiconductors and nuclear energy. Open to individual and group sponsors on a national scale, on a rolling basis until the funds are obligated, with funding limits possible during the pilot phase.	Arkansas Office of Skills Development, under a cooperative agreement with U.S. DOL
$98M YouthBuild	Funds pre-apprenticeship in construction, advanced manufacturing, IT and healthcare through roughly 57 community and education grantees, producing candidates already oriented to the trade and ready to enter a registered program.	U.S. DOL, 30 December 2025

Not all of this is money an employer claims directly. It funds the sponsors that register programs and the providers that prepare candidates to enter them, which is where most of its value to an employer sits.

Against that backdrop, standing up a Registered Apprenticeship and sourcing transitioning service members to fill it follows a defined path, and the sequence matters. Step 03 is the one employers most often skip, and it is the one carrying the recruiting advantage.

Two capabilities sit behind that sequence, and they are worth separating. Fastport has been a Department of Labor Industry Intermediary since 2016, and registering programs, coordinating approvals and administering apprenticeships across many states at once is its core work — infrastructure an individual employer would otherwise assemble alone, state by state. Semper Forward does the recruiting, and does it through people rather than a portal: every candidate works with a coach who reads the military record, translates it into the language of the requisition, and stays with them through the offer.

Recruiting is the half that is not confined to apprenticeships. Employers usually arrive with both problems at once, a handful of apprenticeable roles worth building a program around and a longer list of conventional openings they need filled this quarter, and the same coaches and the same reach into the transition window serve either one.

The benefit in Exhibit 1 has existed for years. What keeps it unclaimed is a pair of federal approvals that most employers never learn are separate until someone tells them. Now you know.

A note on the evidence

The housing allowance. Step-down percentages (100% of the applicable rate for months 1–6, then 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20% for each subsequent six-month period) and the basis for the rate, the Department of Defense BAH rate for an E-5 with dependents in the ZIP code where training occurs, are VA’s published terms for on-the-job training and apprenticeship. That basis is a fixed formula rather than a description of the apprentice: the E-5-with-dependents figure is used whatever the apprentice’s own pay grade or dependent status, and location is the only input that changes the amount. Three limits are material: the payment is reduced for months in which the apprentice works fewer than 120 hours; the monthly amount is scaled by the veteran’s benefit tier, which is set by length of qualifying service; and Post-9/11 entitlement is finite and is charged while the allowance is paid, so a long program can outlast the benefit. BAH rates are revised annually. Exhibit 1 opens at $2,522, VA’s published national average MHA for the 2026–27 rate year, which appears on the same VA page as the cap for training at a foreign institution and, halved to $1,261, as the rate for training taken solely online. The spread quoted around it, roughly $1,191 to more than $5,100 a month, is the range of the underlying DoD BAH rates across military housing areas. Figures produced by Exhibit 1 are projections from published rates, not quotes, and individual eligibility is determined by the VA.

Apprenticeship outcomes. Both figures are the Department of Labor’s. The 91% post-completion retention rate is published in Training and Employment Guidance Letter No. 13-16, Attachment III, and the $1.47 employer return per dollar invested in an Employment and Training Administration news release of 27 July 2016. Both are program-wide across all Registered Apprenticeship, not veteran-specific, and not specific to any occupation or sector.

The offsets. Apprenticeship funding and state apprenticeship incentives vary by jurisdiction. On-the-job-training reimbursement under WIOA Title I is commonly around 50% of wages during the training period. Neither is automatic; availability and amounts vary by state, sector and year, and some programs cannot be combined for the same registration. The three offsets in Exhibit 1 also reach an employer differently, which the shared dollar scale does not show. The WIOA reimbursement and the $3,500 incentive arrive as cash and count as income; the state item is in most states an income tax credit, which is worth its face value because it reduces tax owed dollar for dollar. Working against that, a credit requires tax liability, lands at filing rather than during training, and in several states carries an annual cap or a carryforward rule, while a few states deliver support as a grant or as tuition assistance instead. Most of these apply to registered apprentices generally rather than to veteran hires specifically. Montana is an exception, at $1,500 per veteran apprentice against $750 otherwise. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit is not included: its statutory authorization under Section 113 of Division EE of Public Law 116-260 ran through 31 December 2025 and it lapsed at that date. It has been reauthorized retroactively after previous lapses and may be again, but it is not available for a hire made now, and none of the figures here depend on it.

Federal apprenticeship policy. Executive Order 14278, “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future” (April 2025), set the national goal of one million active apprentices. The $162M Pay-for-Performance Incentive Payments awards and the $98M YouthBuild pre-apprenticeship funding are both confirmed against the Department of Labor releases of 7 July 2026 and 30 December 2025 respectively; the YouthBuild funding serves young people through community and education grantees rather than employers. The $35.8M American Manufacturing Apprenticeship Incentive Fund, and the $3,500 per-apprentice amount drawn from it in Exhibit 1, are confirmed against the program page of the Arkansas Office of Skills Development, which manages the fund for the Arkansas Department of Commerce under a cooperative agreement with the Department of Labor. The incentive is paid per apprentice after a 90-day probationary period rather than at registration, and eligibility is defined by occupation rather than by the employer’s state. These are appropriations and awards to the apprenticeship system rather than direct payments to employers.

GI Bill uptake. The 1% figure is from Michael Pruitt and Zach Boren, “The Post-9/11 GI Bill Underserves Apprentices. Here Are Three Ways It Can Do Better,” Urban Institute, 27 April 2021: “with only 1 percent of GI Bill education benefits going to OJT and apprenticeship.” Pruitt and Boren attribute the low uptake to veterans not perceiving the benefit as valuable enough, reasoning that a benefit veterans know about and do not use is probably an inadequate benefit. This brief reads it as a supply constraint instead, on the grounds that the two-agency approval requirement limits how many roles the benefit can be spent on at all, and that Fastport’s veteran-apprentice share rises well above the national rate where an approved program exists.

Sourcing. Fastport’s veteran-apprentice share is 6,039 of 29,507 apprentices registered across the life of its DOL apprenticeship contracts as of mid-2026, about 20.5%, drawn from ETA-671 apprenticeship agreements where veteran status is self-identified. It is a floor rather than an exact count, and the text rounds it because the denominator grows with every registration. The national veteran share of apprentices is commonly cited at roughly 5%; it is not a matched measurement against the Fastport figure, and Fastport’s portfolio is weighted toward transportation and logistics, where veterans already concentrate. The comparison is an order-of-magnitude difference rather than a precise multiple.

Apprenticeable occupations. The occupations in Exhibit 3 are the DOL Office of Apprenticeship apprenticeable list collapsed to distinct BLS Standard Occupational Classification codes; the actively-used universe is approximately 50 to 80, concentrated in seven industry clusters, against roughly 1,500 entries on the raw list. Any planning that starts from 1,500 will overestimate the field. Openings are pooled across every BLS occupation on a rung, so the figure describes the labour market those roles sit in rather than the apprenticeable subset alone. Occupations shown on the licensed rung may require a state licence or an industry certification in addition to completing the apprenticeship; those requirements are set by each state or certifying body, and a Registered Apprenticeship is commonly a route toward them rather than a substitute for them.

Scope. This brief does not map separations to employer hiring locations. Separations concentrate around a relatively small number of installations, so the overlap between that concentration and any particular employer’s footprint varies widely; establishing it requires installation-level separation data read against specific locations, which is bespoke analysis rather than a published statistic.

The shortage. Sector magnitudes are documented in the companion brief, The Combat-Arms Discount, and are drawn from Boeing, ATEC, ATA, TechForce Foundation, GAO-25-106286, and the Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute 2024 Talent Study.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Post-9/11 GI Bill rates for on-the-job training and apprenticeships (housing allowance step-down, rate basis, hours and entitlement conditions), rate year 1 August 2026 to 31 July 2027; the same page publishes the national average MHA of $2,522, used on that page as the cap for training at a foreign institution and halved to $1,261 for training taken solely online. State Approving Agencies.
• U.S. Department of Defense, Basic Allowance for Housing rates (E-5 with dependents), revised annually. The Norfolk figure used in the opening is the CY2026 rate for military housing area VA298, Norfolk/Portsmouth (ZIP 23510), $2,430.00 per month.
• U.S. Department of Labor ETA, Training and Employment Guidance Letter No. 13-16, Attachment III (91% of Registered Apprenticeship completers retain employment).
• U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, news release, 27 July 2016 ($1.47 employer return per dollar invested).
• Internal Revenue Service, IRC §51 and Work Opportunity Tax Credit guidance; U.S. DOL ETA WOTC program pages (authorization ran through 31 December 2025 under P.L. 116-260, Division EE, §113; lapsed at that date).
• WIOA Title I on-the-job-training reimbursement, administered through American Job Centers.
• U.S. DOL, apprenticeship.gov, “State Tax Credits and Tuition Support” (state-by-state apprenticeship incentives: income tax credits in most states, worth face value against tax owed, ranging from roughly $750 to $7,500 per apprentice a year, with grants or tuition support in others; Montana pays $1,500 per veteran apprentice against $750 otherwise).
• Executive Order 14278, “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future” (The White House, April 2025).
• U.S. Department of Labor, “US Department of Labor awards $162M to expand Registered Apprenticeship through performance-based incentives in key industry sectors,” 7 July 2026 (Pay-for-Performance Incentive Payments Program).
• U.S. Department of Labor, “US Department of Labor announces $98M in available funding to deliver education, occupational skills training, job services to young people,” 30 December 2025 (YouthBuild pre-apprenticeship).
• Arkansas Office of Skills Development, American Manufacturing Apprenticeship Incentive Fund ($35.8M; $3,500 per apprentice after a 90-day probationary period), managed for the Arkansas Department of Commerce under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor: arkansasosd.com/mfgfund/
• Michael Pruitt and Zach Boren, “The Post-9/11 GI Bill Underserves Apprentices. Here Are Three Ways It Can Do Better,” Urban Institute, 27 April 2021 (1% of GI Bill education benefits going to OJT and apprenticeship).
• Fastport, Inc. contract data from ETA-671 apprenticeship agreements (6,039 veterans of 29,507 registered apprentices as of mid-2026, about 20.5%, self-identified); DOL Industry Intermediary since 2016; avionics apprenticeship standard registered March 2026.
• U.S. DOL VETS Employment Navigator and Partnership Program; DoD SkillBridge; Military Spouse Employment Partnership (Semper Forward pre-separation access).
• U.S. Department of Energy, Apprenticeships and Workforce Development (employer-reported reduced turnover and talent-pipeline benefits).
• 29 CFR Part 29, Labor Standards for the Registration of Apprenticeship Programs; U.S. DOL Office of Apprenticeship, National Program Standards.
• United Services Military Apprenticeship Program (USMAP), Departments of Defense and Labor.
• U.S. Department of Defense (approximately 200,000 annual separations).
• Skilled-trade shortage magnitudes: documented in The Combat-Arms Discount.