What is an OA vs SAA apprenticeship state?

If you've been apprenticeship for a little while, you may have heard reference to OA versus SAA states. What’s this whole OA versus SAA thing mean and do you need to know or care?

Well, that depends.

To start, we’d refer to this as more of a level 2 understanding of apprenticeship terms. If you're just getting started in apprenticeship, the basic terms are a better place for you. You may need to understand this OA vs SAA distinction if you work in multiple states, but if you’re limited to a single state, you can likely defer on your understanding of OA versus SAA to start.

OA versus SAA explained

First, what do these terms mean? OA stands for Office of Apprenticeship, which is the federal apprenticeship office from the Department of Labor (DOL). SAA stands for State Apprenticeship Agency, which are apprenticeship agencies run by the states they're in with a department specific to their needs.

Slightly more than half of the states run their own state apprenticeship agency (SAA) to oversee apprenticeships while the other half use the DOL’s office of apprenticeship (OA). You can find the breakdown for each state, and several territories, on apprenticeship.gov.

If, for example, you’re in Oregon – a SAA state – and want to register a new apprenticeship program, you’ll need to work with the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) rather than with the DOL. If you’re in Georgia – an OA state – you’ll work with the federal DOL office in Georgia.

But why?

To start, the state apprenticeship agencies actually came first. Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to support a registered apprenticeship program in 1911. Registration ensured safeguards for the apprentice and employer and became a model for other states and the federal government for developing their own systems.

Once the federal government had its own apprenticeship system in place, there was a need to recognize these state systems that was codified in CFR 2913 - Recognition of State Apprenticeship Agencies.

Today, state apprenticeship agencies go through a recognition process with the DOL to ensure they’re setting basic standards, criteria, and requirements for approving apprenticeship programs. These states approve apprenticeship programs rather than a federal office, which allows for more local alignment of the apprenticeship system. Doing so under the oversight of the federal government helps maintai a national standard for apprenticeship certificate holders that all employers can recognize – much the same way employers can recognize an associates or bachelors degree.

How does this impact your program?

As stated in the beginning of this post, it may not! If you’re only based in a single state, reach out to the apprenticeship office for your state. It could be OA. It could be SAA. It wont necessarily matter if that’s all you have to deal with.

OA states use a common set of forms – apprentice agreements, apprenticeship standards – as well as online systems of record – RAPIDS – that make some of your dealings with the apprenticeship system standardized. In fact, some of the SAA states leverage these resources, too! If you need to work in just two or three states, you can often re-use the work you did in one state for the other, too.

However, many of the SAA states use their own forms, own apprentice agreements, own online systems of record, and have requirements specific to them. In Michigan, you can outline your work process schedule in an Appendix A form. However, in Wisconsin, they’re going to call it an Exhibit A. At its core, these forms, agreements, and systems do the same things, but they’ll look different and have slightly (to very) different nuances. Some of this will be well documented. Other times, you wont realize you have to do something differently in that state until you’re deep into the process.

If you operate in lots of states

The apprenticeship system is incredibly state-specific, and if you operate in a bunch of states, this already sounds quite onerous to have to keep track. However, if you qualify, you can register a single time with either National Program Standards or National Guideline Standards to help smooth out some of the details of working in multiple states. We'll cover both in a future post, but just know that, if you work in multiple states, you can find some release with either NPS or NGS models.

Office of Apprenticeship (OA) States

As of writing, here are the list of OA states and territories, but you can check apprenticeship.gov any time for the complete list:

• Alaska

• Arkansas

• American Samoa

• California*

• Georgia

• Iowa

• Idaho

• Illinois

• Indiana

• Michigan

• Missouri

• Northern Mariana Islands

• Mississippi

• North Dakota

• Nebraska

• New Hampshire

• New Jersey

• Oklahoma

• Puerto Rico

• South Carolina

• South Dakota

• Texas

• Utah

• West Virginia

• Wyoming

Each one of the above states has a local DOL office in the state staffed by federal employees who oversee executing on the federal apprenticeship system in that state or region. Typically, they will also have a state department or non-profit organization that is outside of the federal office that's tasked with driving apprenticeship in that state, however, these offices do not typically approve new programs. Examples of this are Apprenticeship Carolina or Apprenticeship Utah, which both drive, champion, and help fund apprenticeships in their state but do not have regulatory authority over them.

If you operate in one of the above states, you'll want to get to know representatives at both of these types of organizations.

State Apprenticeship Agency (SAA) States

As of writing, the complete list of SAA states is as follows:

• Alabama

• Arizona

• California*

• Colorado

• Connecticut

• District of Columbia

• Delaware

• Florida

• Guam

• Hawaii

• Kansas

• Kentucky

• Louisiana

• Massachusetts

• Maryland

• Maine

• Minnesota

• Montana

• North Carolina

• New Mexico

• Nevada

• New York

• Ohio

• Oregon

• Pennsylvania

• Rhode Island

• Tennessee

• Virginia

• Virgin Islands

• Vermont

• Washington

• Wisconsin

Each one of the above states has a state government department that oversees AND champions apprenticeships. The department tasked with overseeing apprenticeships in that state will vary widely depending on the culture of apprenticeship in that state. For example, in North Carolina, apprenticeships are overseen by the ApprenticeshipNC community college system, or in Florida, apprenticeships are overseen by the Department of Education. Both of these systems are heavily influenced by the education / college systems in their states.

In other states, you'll find apprenticeships overseen by a labor and industry department such as Labor & Industries Washington or Bureau of Labor and Industries Oregon. You'll find them overseen by a workforce department such as Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development or Indiana Department of Workforce Development, or you'll find a division specifically tailored to apprenticeship like Massachusetts Division of Apprenticeship Standards or California's Division of Apprenticeship Standards.

A special case… California

But wait! There’s more. If you look carefully at the two lists above – California is actually in both of them.

California, despite having by far the largest number of apprentices in the nation, has a SAA that is not recognized by the DOL. The reasons for that are beyond the scope of this post, but if you are in California, you may want to dual register both with the DOL and the Division of Apprenticeship Services (DAS) if you want both to be nationally recognized and to get access to state-specific funding.