Google just announced a $50 million commitment aimed at preparing more than 300,000 skilled trades workers by supporting unions, trade associations, apprenticeship access, training capacity, and worker support. Meta has also announced an initial $115 million first-year investment in America's Workforce Academy, which includes free training and guaranteed jobs for graduates.

The two investments are structured differently. But even a program that combines training with a guaranteed job cannot fully control what happens after someone enters the workplace. Once someone reaches the workplace, the employer becomes a major part of whether that training turns into a lasting career.

Why People Leave and Why People Stay

To be clear, the trades do need more people entering the field. But another training target will not solve the workforce shortage unless we pay equal attention to how many people stay.

And that's what I keep coming back to. Getting 300,000 people into a training program is not the same thing as getting 300,000 people into a career.

Talk to enough employers, apprentices, and workforce leaders, like I do every week on my podcast, The Lost Art of the Skilled Trades, and you hear the same thing over and over: many people leave for reasons that have little to do with whether they are capable of learning and performing the work. The breakdown is not always technical ability.

In the workplaces I have studied and the conversations I have had, the warning signs often show up within the first 90 days. The mentorship is not there. The culture is not what they expected. The job looks different from what they were told it would be.

Whether it is an 18-year-old straight out of high school, a 35-year-old changing careers, a veteran translating military skills into a trade, or someone in their 40s starting over, the moment is often the same: they show up, and no one has clearly decided who is responsible for helping them understand the work, the expectations, and whether there is a future for them there.

Recruiting Gets the Money - Retention Gets an Afterthought

I've spent close to twenty-five years around this industry, first building a national tool supply company from scratch, now talking to workforce leaders every week for my podcast and speaking with people across the trades at events around the country. And the same pattern keeps showing up.

Companies pour money into recruiting. Job fairs, signing bonuses, slick videos, partnerships with trade schools, all aimed at getting more people to raise their hand.

Then employers are surprised when many of those new hires do not make it through the first year. I hear it constantly: getting people interested is hard, but keeping them engaged, supported, and moving forward can be even harder.

In an informal LinkedIn poll of 110 respondents, 44% selected lack of mentorship from the four choices I provided. That's not a study you can cite in a grant application, but it lines up with pretty much every conversation I've had on this.

Apprenticeship trains the tradesperson. Mentorship builds the tradesperson.

The best apprenticeship programs already understand this. The problem is that not every workplace surrounding an apprentice operates with the same level of intention.

Apprenticeship teaches technical skills: how to run a bead, size a duct, or read a print. Technical training is usually the part that is easiest to see and measure. There is a curriculum, a set number of hours, and a skill to demonstrate.

Mentorship is different. It's what tells someone they matter before they've proven anything. It's the difference between handing someone a task list and telling them why the list matters and who to go to when they're stuck. It is rarely measured with the same discipline as technical training.

In too many shops, no one is clearly accountable for it.

Your Best Producer Is Not Automatically Your Best Mentor

Here's a pattern I run into constantly when I ask companies how they actually pick mentors.

When someone needs to pair a new hire with an experienced hand, too often the default is the same: grab one of the best producers. Makes sense on the surface. Who better to learn from than the person putting up the best numbers?

Except being great at the work and being great at teaching it are two different things, and too many companies treat them like they're the same. Your best producer may know the work inside and out. But much of what they do has become automatic. Asking them to slow down, explain every step, and remember what it felt like to be new requires a completely different skill set.

Some never wanted the responsibility in the first place, but were assigned it because they were good at the work.

Meanwhile there's usually somebody else on that floor, not the fastest, not the one with the trophy, who's a natural at this. Patient. Notices when someone's lost. Remembers what it felt like to not know anything. That person can easily be overlooked when mentor selection is based mainly on production.

And even when the right person does get picked, they need support too. If mentoring someone hurts a mentor's production numbers or paycheck, the system is punishing the exact behavior the company says it wants. You can't ask someone to slow down and teach, then measure them like they never slowed down at all.

Mentorship is not the only issue. Pay, transportation, scheduling, supervision, workplace culture, and whether the job matches what someone was promised all matter too. But mentorship is often the first line of support when those problems appear.

Employers cannot control every reason someone leaves. But they can control whether expectations are clear, whether the workplace is respectful, whether mentors are prepared, and whether a new person can see progress.

So Which Is it: Finding People or Keeping Them?

I asked this in my original LinkedIn post, and I still think most leaders answer it on instinct without checking it against what's actually happening in their own shop.

The trades absolutely need more people, and these two investments totaling $165 million support training, apprenticeship access, worker support, and employment. That is good news.

But recruiting alone will not solve the shortage if many of the people who show up leave before they have the chance to become skilled tradespeople.

Training gets someone ready to walk through the door. What happens after that is still on us.

Because the goal is not to create 300,000 trainees.

The goal is to build 300,000 careers.

So where you are right now, which is the bigger challenge: finding people or keeping them?