{"id":689,"date":"2018-07-27T13:22:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T17:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regionslead.org\/?p=689"},"modified":"2020-05-29T20:22:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T20:22:42","slug":"american-worker-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narc.org\/2018\/07\/27\/american-worker-council\/","title":{"rendered":"President Seeks to Increase Job Training Opportunities for America\u2019s Unskilled Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, July 18, the president signed an executive order that creates the Council for the American Worker<\/em>. Led by the secretaries of commerce and labor, the Council is expected to focus on reorganizing federal workforce development programs and generating funding for new job training initiatives, especially apprenticeships and older worker training.<\/p>\n

This initiative comes as business and industry are reporting a shortage of qualified workers to fill the nearly six million job vacancies. Of the 6.6 million Americans who are unemployed, most lack the skills and education to fill current job openings, according to the nation\u2019s business leaders.<\/p>\n

According to the White House, twenty-three private-sector companies and trade unions have come together to create up to four million apprenticeships, and retraining and continuing education slots over the next five years. If this effort succeeds, the president and many business leaders believe the current skills shortage among America\u2019s workers can be addressed.<\/p>\n

The initiative would also bring together representatives from business and industry, unions, and state governments to examine the range of federal workforce development programs and better align them to meet the labor demands of the private sector.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the initiative feels a bit like \u201cd\u00e9j\u00e0 vu all over again.\u201d The very things that the president has tasked the private and public sectors with in this initiative were what led to the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA) and lie at the heart of what local workforce investment boards do every day.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, Congress discussed and debated what needed to be done to ensure that the nation\u2019s workforce system operated effectively. Four years ago, Congress passed and then President Obama signed into law the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The law received strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, and passed overwhelmingly (415 \u2013 6 and 95 \u2013 3, respectively).<\/p>\n

The result is a system that ensures that:<\/p>\n