JOBS: Trump Prods Labor Department to Promote Apprenticeship Programs to Erase Skills Gap.

President Donald Trump applied his considerable branding ability to a key economic issue on Thursday.

He said he really likes the phrase, “Earn while you learn.”

It describes the basis for apprenticeship programs, which are the focus of the White House’s workforce development week. He signed an executive order to encourage more of them. . . .

But apprenticeships are just one slice of a much larger workforce development pie. There are retraining programs for veterans, dislocated workers, and older Americans — to name just a few.

Even Trump’s fiercest critics on the left think that the man who created and starred in NBC’s “The Apprentice” could go a long way toward reshaping the workforce if he threw his marketing prowess behind programs that help develop it.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) likes to say that the former reality show star president could champion apprenticeship programs all over the country by playing on his celebrity past.

“I guarantee Democrats would vote for that,” he said last week at a summit in Washington.

Well, let’s find out.