U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao

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As Delivered

Department of Labor/Urban Institute Forum on Employer-Led Training
Washington, D.C.
June 25, 2003

Thank you Bob [Robert Reischauer, President of the Urban Institute] for the kind introduction.

We are pleased that the Urban Institute is a co-sponsor of this event and for assembling such a renowned group of panelists and speakers.

I want to thank today’s participants for their research and discussion on how to strengthen employer-led training in the United States. And the Department looks forward to working with you on improving our public workforce investment system.

I also want to thank Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the Chief Economist of the Department of Labor; Marlene Colucci, Counselor to the Deputy Secretary of Labor; Emily DeRocco, Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employment and Training Administration; and Mason Bishop, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employment and Training Administration, for helping to shape this conference.

This President and this Administration are dedicated to ensuring that no worker is left behind. The key to making this goal a reality is developing a workforce development system that is responsive to those out of work and the need of companies who want to hire workers because they provide the jobs. That means training dislocated and other workers for jobs and skills employers actually need.

President George W. Bush again re-emphasized this theme when we hosted a worker training roundtable at Northern Virginia Community College. The President said that in the past, “it didn’t matter what you were training people for, the question was, are you training people? Now we’re asking the right question. Are you training people for jobs that exist, so we can actually help people?”

To help Americans find good jobs we must link educational and training opportunities with the real world of work. That means linking them up with employers, occupations and industries that are experiencing growth.

There’s been concern about the lack-luster pace of the economic recovery.

Clearly, jobs are not being created at the rate we would all like to see. Still, a number of occupations and industries are expanding. Hardly a week goes by when a major industry organization or company CEO contacts us seeking help in filling jobs. That’s not surprising—in a recent study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, half of the employers surveyed still have a difficult time finding qualified applicants.

In May alone, America’s Job Bank—an online job site hosted by the Department of Labor—had over 5,000 companies posting nearly 760,000 jobs. For example, Home Depot, which opens a new store every 43 hours, is looking to hire 160,000 seasonal and permanent positions over the next 4 years. And CVS is looking to hire 6,500 pharmacists alone.

At the Department of Labor, we’re working with leading industries to identify, which occupations are growing, and which skill sets are in demand by employers.

Health care, in particular, is undergoing rapid growth. The health care industry now accounts for about 13 percent of our annual GDP, and provides more than 11 million jobs. Nine of the nation’s 20 fastest growing occupations are in health care.

The biotech field is another rapidly growing part of the economy. Biotech jobs will grow by three million over the next seven years—with double-digit increases in such areas as pharmaceutical manufacturing, biological technicians and scientists.

Then there’s the sales and retail industry. While it is still struggling, this industry is looking to improve the Information technology and customer relation skills of its workforce. By 2010, the industry will add 1.6 million new jobs and employ 16 million workers.

And there are many more opportunities in transportation, geo-spatial technology, and computer and information services.

The challenge for us is how to advance training and educational opportunities in the workplace so that American workers can access these good paying jobs, become more self-sufficient and build brighter futures for themselves and their families.

Part of the solution lies in reforming our national workforce investment system. The Department of Labor will expand the services available at the One-stop Centers, ensure greater accountability, and eliminate unnecessary and burdensome requirements that discourage post-secondary institutions and other providers from participating as training partners. And, as the President mentioned last week, this Administration has proposed the creation of Personal Reemployment Accounts, to give dislocated workers the flexibility to customize their own specialized training and other support services.

Recently, the Department of Labor spearheaded this Administration’s effort to obtain passage of the Workforce Reinvestment Act by the U.S. House of Representatives. It was a major step in the direction of reforming our public workforce investment system. As part of this reform, the President has asked the Congress to provide $3.6 billion for personal reemployment accounts to empower dislocated workers. But government can only do so much.

The other half of the solution lies in greater employer involvement in the workforce investment system.

We are enlisting the active participation of a variety of employers to create a demand driven system that helps workers find jobs. We’re inviting more employers to become members of local workforce investment boards. We’re asking employers to help give input as to how the investment of workforce training dollars to skills in demand should be invested. And we’re tying employer-led training programs more closely to public workforce development plans and initiatives.

The workforce investment system is a great investment by the American people in our workforce—it is doing a good job. It needs to do a better job of identifying the skill sets employers are seeking and encouraging employers to participate in workforce development programs, particularly the One-Stop Career Centers.

The $11.5 billion national system of One-stop Career Centers is one of America’s best-kept secrets and we want to share it with everyone who needs its services.

As a new study released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted, over 40 percent of the employers surveyed are aware of the One-stop Career Centers in their areas. While this is an improvement on recent years, we want more employers to know of these resource centers. And nearly 20 percent of employers reported having used a One-stop Center in the past 12 months.

Again, while that’s a major improvement, we want 100% of employers to access this great investment in our workforce.

However, more needs to be done further these partnerships between employers and the workforce development system. In particular, we need to support employer-led training and education so employed workers are gaining relevant skills that employers need so workers can be more secure, more self-sufficient and better able to succeed in the 21^st century workforce.

As we have learned from the papers presented this morning, firms that invest in their workers through tuition assistance or training programs actually reduce employee turnover. They outperform companies that do not make these investments in “human capital.”

So whether employers become involved through their own training programs or as a partner with the workforce develop system, this much is clear—providing training is a win-win situation for everyone. Training benefits the employer’s bottom line, provides workers with better opportunities for advancement, and keeps the economy strong.

That’s why today’s discussion is so important.

We need your advice and assistance in furthering employer-led training and educational programs. We need you to help us spread the word about the benefits of workforce training. And we need you to be an advocate for more demand driven training programs and initiatives. By working together we can help workers gain the skills they need to build brighter futures for themselves and their families.

So thank you again for participating in this conference. And thank you for what you are doing to prepare the American workforce for the challenges of the 21^st century so that no worker will be left behind.

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