Katelyn Leppert didn’t hesitate when asked to picture her future. “In 20 years, I see myself as a strong union carpenter,” said the 18-year-old recent graduate of Elmwood Park High School. Leppert is one of 35 young adults who completed the Carpenters Apprentice Ready Program (CARP) this month, part of a growing national effort to route high school graduates directly into skilled trades apprenticeships at a moment when the construction industry needs hundreds of thousands of new workers just to keep pace with demand.
The Aug. 6 graduation ceremony, held at the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters (EASRCC) Technical Center, marked a milestone in an unusual three-way partnership: Big Picture Learning, a national education nonprofit, working alongside EASRCC and the Carpenter Contractor Trust (CCT) to build a direct pipeline from high school into union construction careers. The initiative operates under Bloomberg Philanthropies’ $90 million national skilled trades initiative, a program specifically designed to change how high school students prepare for and enter Registered Apprenticeships in high-wage, in-demand trades.
The timing lines up with a labor shortage that’s become one of the most consistently documented workforce problems in the U.S. economy. Associated Builders and Contractors projects the construction industry will need to add 349,000 net new workers in 2026 alone just to keep labor supply in balance with demand, while the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts total annual openings across construction and extraction occupations at roughly 649,300 per year once retirements and career changes are factored in. The demographic pressure compounds the problem: Deloitte projects that 41% of the current construction workforce will retire by 2031, and the median age of a construction worker currently sits at 42, meaning a generational wave of institutional trade knowledge is heading toward retirement faster than new entrants are replacing it.
CARP is built to address that gap directly, and its curriculum reflects what contractors actually need on day one, not just theoretical trade knowledge. The program introduces participants to carpentry fundamentals, jobsite safety, construction math, proper tool use and general workplace expectations, alongside the professional skills required to succeed once they enter a Registered Apprenticeship. Robert Landy, Training Director at the EAS Carpenter Technical Centers, described the broader scope of that preparation: participants learn how to build a resume, handle a job interview and secure references, in addition to preparing for the carpenter’s entrance exam. That combination, technical readiness paired with basic job-seeking skills, addresses a friction point that keeps many capable young workers out of formal apprenticeship pipelines even when demand for their labor is high.
The program’s design also serves a second constituency directly: contractors who need workers they can trust on a live job site without a lengthy ramp-up period. Dan Wright, CCT’s Workforce Development Coordinator, framed the value proposition from that side of the partnership. “CARP helps ensure contractors have access to a skilled, safe and dependable workforce,” Wright said, noting that graduates arrive already disciplined, safety-certified and ready to be productive from their first hour on the clock. That’s a meaningful distinction in an industry where onboarding inexperienced workers onto active construction sites carries real safety stakes, and where a shortened path to productivity has direct economic value to signatory contractors managing project timelines.
Anthony Abrantes, Assistant Executive Secretary-Treasurer for the EASRCC, described this particular graduating cohort as a window into where the field is headed, crediting the group’s dedication and discipline as the foundation for what comes next: entry into a Registered Apprenticeship where participants earn wages while continuing to build their craft skills over a structured, multi-year training period, the “earn while you learn” model that distinguishes registered apprenticeships from most other career-entry pathways available to recent high school graduates.
Elliot Washor, co-founder of Big Picture Learning, described the ceremony in unusually vivid terms for a workforce development milestone, comparing the energy in the room to an NBA draft day. That comparison points to something structurally significant about the model itself: rather than treating career entry as something that happens after graduation, disconnected from the school experience, the partnership brings schools, unions and industry together early enough that students can see a concrete, named outcome ahead of them while they’re still in high school. Washor described that visibility as the core of what the START Center model, the broader framework Big Picture Learning uses for these partnerships, is designed to create.
The 2026 program ran sessions in Edison and Hammonton, New Jersey, and its outcomes reflect a broader national shift already underway in how young people are choosing to enter the workforce. Registered apprenticeships nationally have more than doubled over the past decade, climbing to roughly 680,000 active participants as of fiscal year 2024, up 114% from a decade earlier, while vocational and technical program enrollment has grown by double digits in recent years as more students weigh trade training’s shorter timeline and lower debt burden against a traditional four-year degree path.
For workforce development leaders and HR teams inside construction, manufacturing and related industries, the CARP model offers a template increasingly relevant beyond carpentry specifically: a structured, school-embedded pipeline that gets young workers apprenticeship-ready before graduation, rather than relying on post-graduation recruiting to fill a gap that’s growing faster than traditional pipelines can close it.
Market Landscape
CARP’s launch reflects a broader wave of investment in skilled trades pipelines, alongside major initiatives like Home Depot Foundation’s Path to Pro program, which has introduced nearly 600,000 individuals to the trades and committed $1 million toward nationwide education grants. As construction, manufacturing and infrastructure spending continue climbing under federal programs like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, employer-embedded, school-based apprenticeship pipelines are increasingly viewed as essential infrastructure for closing a labor gap that traditional hiring and staffing approaches haven’t been able to solve on their own.
Top Insights
- Big Picture Learning, EASRCC and the Carpenter Contractor Trust graduated 35 young adults from the Carpenters Apprentice Ready Program, sending them directly into Registered Apprenticeships in union carpentry.
- The initiative is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ $90 million national skilled trades program, designed to reshape how high schoolers enter high-wage, in-demand trade careers.
- Associated Builders and Contractors projects the U.S. construction industry needs 349,000 new workers in 2026 alone, with 41% of the current workforce expected to retire by 2031.
- CARP combines technical trade training with job-seeking skills like resume building and interview preparation, addressing both employer readiness and student career-entry barriers.
- Registered apprenticeships nationally have more than doubled over the past decade to roughly 680,000 active participants, reflecting a broader generational shift toward trade careers.
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