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OPA News Release: [10/03/2003]
Contact Name: Bob Zachariasiewicz
Phone Number: (202) 693-4686

Labor Department Plan Focuses on Needs of 21^st Century Workforce

Labor Secretary Chao Sends New Strategic Plan to Congress

WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao released the newly developed Department of Labor Strategic Plan for 2003-2008. The plan updates the current strategic plan and outlines the department’s priorities for the next several years. The new strategic plan demonstrates how the department will achieve its goals:

• A Prepared Workforce—Enhance opportunities for America’s workforce
• A Secure Workforce—Promote the economic security of workers and families
• A Quality Workplace—Foster quality workplaces that are safe, healthy and fair
• A Competitive Workforce—Maintain competitiveness in the 21^st century

The fourth goal—a competitive workforce—was added to the plan in order to direct strategies to prepare the country’s workforce to meet the challenges of a global economy. The goal focuses on equipping workers to adapt to the competitive challenges of the 21^st century workplace and maximizing workplace flexibility and benefits.

Among the new trends that reflect a rapidly changing workforce is the increasing need for information technology workers and workers trained in knowledge processing. The workplace must adapt to the way work is performed and the transition to new technologies that empower workers through telecommuting and e-learning.

The latest research and statistics indicate that these trends will only increase in the years ahead. Based on this information, the department updated its strategic plan in order to provide workers with the tools necessary to prepare them to adapt to this new era of empowering technology, lifelong learning and global competition while ensuring that the workforce remains safe and secure.

For more information about the Department of Labor’s new strategic plan goals, visit www.dol.gov.

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