Today’s post was shared by U.S. Labor Department and comes from blog.dol.gov

National Apprenticeship Week was earlier this month. Do you know someone who has been an apprentice or who has a technical job and taken a different path than a four-year degree to get there? What do you do to stay on top of the technology changes in your industry? Does your industry rely on technology, and how has your job changed over the time you have been working due to technology?

People should expect to have a number of jobs throughout their work life and even may have numerous careers. Learning the skills to be flexible and continue to learn is essential, and this is one reason that apprenticeships are so appealing. But they definitely must be paid. In addition, most apprenticeships hopefully will lead to full-time jobs with full-time benefits.

I just hope that in programs like the one Nestle highlights in the blog post that worker and workplace safety in the company culture is right up there with skill building as far as priorities taught to apprentices.

Every day, Americans are encountering new technologies that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. From smartphones to the notion of recreational space travel, it can sometimes feel like we’re running on a technology treadmill.

The challenge, of course, is keeping up.

In the world of manufacturing, incredible advances fueled by technological innovations have remade industry in large and small ways, leaving a “middle-skills gap” — in essence, technology has outpaced our workforce. Yet this gap is also an opening for companies to help 21st-century workers keep pace with the treadmill. This issue will certainly be front and center during this presidential campaign cycle, and National Apprenticeship Week — starting Nov. 2 — provides a sound moment for businesses to ask: Are we helping our employees keep pace — for us and for them?

At Nestlé, the technology and skills needed vary from plant to plant, from product to product. The processes and production lines are altogether different, depending on whether we’re making baby food or ice cream, pet food or coffee. The more diverse a business’s portfolio, the more diverse its workforce needs to be.

That’s why Nestlé and companies like ours are creating new paths of opportunities for workers around the globe. In the United States, that means ramping up the number of apprenticeships, creating rich internships and conducting instructive traditional and…[Click here to see the rest of this post]