 Apprenticeship. An apprenticeship is a system of training. A new generation has practitioners of a trade or profession without the job training and often some accompanying study classroom work and reading. Apprenticeship also enables practitioners to gain the license to practice in a regulated profession. Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies. Apprenticeships typically last three to seven years. People who successfully complete an apprenticeship reach the journeyman or professional certification level of competence. Although the formal boundaries and terminology of the apprentice-slash-journeyman-slash-master system often do not extend outside guilds and trade unions, the concept of on-the-job training leading to competence over a period of years is found in any field of skilled labor. In early modern usage, the clipped form apprentice was common.