Emily Stover DeRocco Speech, Employment & Training Administration (ETA)

Speeches by Assistant Secretary Emily Stover DeRocco

Nuclear Renaissance- Human Capital Challenges and Opportunities

November 7, 2007

The Employment & Training Administration is at this table because our role is to administer the $15 billion per year public workforce investment system, including the nation’s apprenticeship program. Our challenge through the workforce investment system is to educate and prepare America’s workers for jobs in demand in today’s and tomorrow’s innovation economy. Energy is among the high-growth, high demand industry sectors on which we have focused, recognizing the challenges faced by the industry broadly, and the nuclear sector specifically.
Those challenges, broadly stated, include the demographics of the current energy workforce, the fact that too few potential workers and youth are interested in careers in the energy industry, the lack of capacity in our educational and job training system to develop the skills needed by workers in the industry, the lack of industry-defined credentials and career pathways, and – particularly for the nuclear sector – the inadequate supply of skilled craft workers.
ETA has worked closely with energy leaders over the last 6 years to understand the workforce challenges facing the industry and to develop and model solutions to those challenges. More needs to be done.
As energy demand continues to increase, the energy infrastructure will need to be re-tooled or maintained and, with about 30 proposed new nuclear plants potentially coming online in our country within the next decade, the industry is searching for qualified and well-trained workers to construct new infrastructure, install equipment, operate facilities, and make repairs.
In late August 2007, with help from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and other industry associations, ETA partnered with the Southern Governors’ Association to host an Energy Skilled Trades Summit. We focused on the southeast for several reasons, including the fact that NEI estimates the southeast will host 27 of the 31 nuclear plants for which license applications are being developed. The Summit served several purposes including: 1) raising awareness about the looming skilled craft shortage and its impact on the energy industry’s infrastructure improvement efforts; 2) building and aligning existing Federal, state and local resources and strategic plans of the workforce development, economic development, and education systems; and, 3) identifying strategies to ensure American workers have the skills necessary for building and maintaining the next generation of energy infrastructure.
In addition to NEI, key sponsors were the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the American Petroleum Institute (API), the Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD), and the State of Mississippi. The Summit included an executive session and a workforce solutions forum at which promising practices and programs were identified. The executive session was attended by four governors, twenty CEOs of major energy and construction firms, labor leaders, along with state education directors and workforce system leadership, and over 300 Summit attendees.
Since the Summit, ETA has been directly supporting the work of 16 “on the ground” state teams in their efforts to align state policies and resources and develop education and workforce development strategies. The teams consist of leaders from education, workforce, economic development, and industry who are committed to developing concrete workforce strategies that create a pipeline of new, skilled energy workers and ultimately train workers to meet industry demands and fill the jobs. In addition, the state teams are developing sustainability strategies in order to fill the gap left by workers who are retiring and leaving the industry.
ETA is supplying the teams with tools and resources to support their work. In addition, we are sharing products from existing energy and construction High Growth and Community College grants such as curriculum, career ladders, and competency models to assist teams as they begin implementing specific programs. The products were developed to address industry workforce challenges such as image, recruitment, skills development, and needed proficiency in technology application.
Lastly, I want to mention that the Department will be making additional resources available to fund new solutions to these challenges. Shortly we will issue a Solicitation for Grant Applications dedicated to increasing the number of skilled craft workers in energy.
We continue to work closely with NEI. In fact, it was NEI who came to me with the idea for a summit over a year ago, and their members and staff have committed time, energy and resources to the development of the energy skilled trades workforce. NEI spearheaded an industry workgroup that was responsible for the development of a critical white paper on the workforce shortages at the intersection of the energy and construction industries. The workgroup continues to manage the Summit outcomes as leaders of the state teams helping to convene and catalyze all of the critical partners needed for the development of this key workforce.