to qualify, unions may have solved this problem in the US. in europe, which has a stronger apprentice culture, unions don't have any role here.
(i am not saying this to criticize the comment but just to point out one of the many differences between unions in the US and europe)
the problem with apprentice programs is that they lag behind the changes in the industry. when i was in school there were none for software developers for example. there are now, but the second problem is that apprentice programs are considered of lower status compared to studying at a university. think blue-collar programmers vs white-collar software developers. the pay is also different.
i don't know anything about union accreditation programs, but i can imagine that they would be targeted at the available jobs, and with unions in the US having more influence at who gets hired, they probably can make sure that an accreditation actually leads to a job.
apprentice programs traditionally also promised that you'd get hired at the company where you learned, but this is no longer certain. together with the status and pay differences it is no surprise then that the number of people starting apprentice programs is declining.
on the other side university studies are not targeted at the industry. which only adds to the perception of candidates not matching employers needs. as an employer it is difficult to tell whether a candidate with a diploma is actually capable of doing the job.
unions are long established in europe, at least in western europe, and are a cornerstone of the social system. even white collar jobs have unions. this is in contrast to the US where unions are almost entirely non existent for white collar jobs like software engineering.
Union Law in a lot of "Europe" (a broad term so very dependent country to country) is much less adversarial with businesses than in the US.
At least in Western Europe, the big Unions won't fight tooth and nail over mass layoffs (eg. Volvo in 2009-12 Sweden versus GM in 2009-12 US) and make it a major political issue, as the Union Leadership has larger ambitions beyond their Union.
A lot of this seems to stem from the influence National Syndicalism had on most European unions in the 20th century compared to traditional Syndicalism in the US+UK in the 20th century.
>Union Law in a lot of “Europe” […] is much less adversarial with businesses than in the US.
US labor law was designed to be adversarial at the firm level because that gives individual firms greater power to crush unions and prevents sectoral bargaining and sympathy strikes. One can see the vestiges of “European” labor organizing in the film industry, which has an exemption to this that was grandfathered in.
You didn't understand the context. Unions in Europe are usually not involved at all in accrediting professionals in their fields. Thats what the conversation is about.
The 'guilds' seem to have a similar purpose here in Britain, namely that of providing legally-required accreditation programmes. However, these are only for certain trades, and I put guilds in scarequotes because they aren't as exclusive as the mediaeval form.
Re. universities, it was widely quoted a few years ago that more people graduated with a bachelors in photography during that year than there were practising photographers!
(i am not saying this to criticize the comment but just to point out one of the many differences between unions in the US and europe)
the problem with apprentice programs is that they lag behind the changes in the industry. when i was in school there were none for software developers for example. there are now, but the second problem is that apprentice programs are considered of lower status compared to studying at a university. think blue-collar programmers vs white-collar software developers. the pay is also different.
i don't know anything about union accreditation programs, but i can imagine that they would be targeted at the available jobs, and with unions in the US having more influence at who gets hired, they probably can make sure that an accreditation actually leads to a job.
apprentice programs traditionally also promised that you'd get hired at the company where you learned, but this is no longer certain. together with the status and pay differences it is no surprise then that the number of people starting apprentice programs is declining.
on the other side university studies are not targeted at the industry. which only adds to the perception of candidates not matching employers needs. as an employer it is difficult to tell whether a candidate with a diploma is actually capable of doing the job.