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Blog Category: Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

Emphasizing Efforts to Improve Manufacturing Competitiveness

Submitted on May 3, 2012 - 9:00am
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Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank listens to members of the Council on Competitiveness Executive Board

Guest blog post by Deputy Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank

Yesterday, I spoke to the Council on Competitiveness Executive Board about how the Commerce Department, working with the National Economic Council, leads the administration’s efforts across the federal government to promote a vibrant manufacturing sector in the United States.

Manufacturing is vitally important to supporting an economy that is built to last. Manufacturing accounts for 90 percent of our patents, 70 percent of private sector R&D and 60 percent of our exports–including a record $1.3 trillion in goods exported last year. The manufacturing sector has grown strongly over the past two years. After decades of losing manufacturing jobs, the manufacturing sector has been adding jobs for over two years. In the past 25 months manufacturing has added nearly a half million new jobs and 120,000 of those came in the first three months of this year. Importantly, these tend to be high-paying jobs with good benefits.

Even with these improvements in the manufacturing sector, there is much more work to do to ensure America remains competitive. The Department of Commerce recently released a report, “The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States,” that discusses some of the challenges the U.S. faces in retaining its global leadership, particularly in manufacturing, and lays out a policy agenda to address these challenges.

Commerce has long worked on this issue through its Manufacturing Extension Partnership at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which supports centers in every state that consult with companies facing technological problems and puts them in touch with scientists and engineers who can help solve those problems. For every dollar of federal investment, the MEP generates around $30 in new sales growth. This translates into $3.6 billion in new sales annually.

Some of the more recent efforts within the Commerce Department to build a policy environment in which manufacturing can flourish include:

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President Obama Meets with the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

Submitted on January 17, 2012 - 6:00pm
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Cross post to the White House Blog

Today, President Obama convened a meeting of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, a group of 27 leaders from business, labor and academia tasked with providing the President advice on strengthening our nation’s economy.

Since its first meeting about a year ago, the Council has put forward a host of recommendations that foster growth, competitiveness, innovation, and job creation, both now and for the future. Of the 35 specific recommendations the Council has made that don’t require legislative action, President Obama has taken action on 33 of them and his administration has already implemented 16.

Some of the implemented recommendations include proposing new tax rules that encourage businesses to invest and create jobs in the United States instead of overseas, expediting job-creating infrastructure projects across the country, eliminating inefficient and burdensome federal regulations, and streamlining government.

At today’s meeting, President Obama praised the Jobs Council for the work they are doing to help our country move forward.

"I recognize a lot of these issues are difficult. They’ve proven challenging for decades. The good news is on each of these fronts we’ve made progress this year. I feel confident in being able to say that every one of the agencies in this government has been focused on how do they improve, get smarter, get better, get faster, become more focused on delivering good value to the end user. And I believe that we’ve made genuine progress on all these fronts. We would not have made this progress without this Jobs Council."

The Jobs Council released a new report in advance of today's meeting that details recommendations to improve our nation's long-term competitiveness by investing in our education system, building on our strengths in manufacturing and energy, and reforming our regulatory and corporate tax systems. Read the full report here.

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Secretary Locke Joined President Obama For Jobs and Competitiveness Council Meeting In North Carolina

Submitted on June 13, 2011 - 5:35pm
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Chancellor Woodson talks with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke.

Earlier today, Secretary Locke joined President Obama and other senior administration officials for a meeting of the Jobs and Competitiveness Council in the Raleigh-Durham area. Prior to the President's arrival, Secretary Locke participated in one of the five Listening and Action sessions to engage with the local business community and solicit input on how the public and private sectors can partner to create opportunity and job creation for small businesses.

Other participants in the session, titled “Energy Innovation and Smartgrid,” include Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric, Lewis Hay, III, Chairman and CEO of NextEra Energy, Gary Kelly, Chairman, President, and CEO of Southwest Airlines, and Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation.

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Hearing From Local Businesses in Minneapolis, MN: Secretary Locke Joins a White House Jobs and Competitiveness Council Listening and Action Session

Submitted on May 17, 2011 - 5:00pm
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UPDATED: Secretary Locke wrote about his time in Minneapolis on the White House blog.

Today, Secretary Locke traveled to Minneapolis to take part in a White House Jobs and Competitiveness Council Listening and Action Session. There, he heard suggestions from local business leaders on how the public and private sectors can work together to create jobs and enhance competitiveness for small businesses.

Secretary Locke was joined by Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and CEO, Kodak, Don Graves, President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Department of Treasury, Ron Bloom, Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy, President’s National Economic Council, and Darlene Miller, President and CEO, Permac Industries.

Ms. Miller and Permak Industries, located just outside Minneapolis, played host to the session. They provided Administration officials and Jobs Council Members with a tour the Permac Industries facility and then held forum discussions and Q and A sessions with local business owners to discuss ideas for creating jobs and growing business in this country.

These sessions are part of an ongoing series of regional Council Listening and Action Sessions that will take place around the country.  The purpose of the regional sessions is to respond to the President’s challenge that the Council bring new voices to the table and ensure that everyone can participate and inform the work and recommendations of the Council.  The ideas and information exchanged at these events will help inform the future policy work of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The first Listening and Action Session took place in Dayton, Ohio and focused on creating new markets and customers for small businesses through supply chain development, in-sourcing, and partnerships with large businesses.

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Secretary Locke Joined President Obama for First Meeting of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

Submitted on February 24, 2011 - 5:45pm
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President Barack Obama meets with the members of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Feb. 24, 2011. From left are; General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, chair of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness; President Obama; Chief of Staff Bill Daley; and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Today, Secretary Locke joined President Obama at the White House for the first meeting of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Today’s meeting served as a forum on how to continue the dialogue between government and the private sector. The Council is focused on finding new ways to promote growth by investing in American business to encourage hiring, to educate and train our workers to compete globally, and to attract the best jobs and businesses to the United States. The Council’s members represent various sectors of the economy, bringing diverse perspectives on how the government can best promote growth, spark innovation, create new jobs, and invest in American competiveness so we can out-compete the rest of the world.  As part of the effort to bring diverse perspectives to the table, two of the Council Members are small business owners, representing the critical role small businesses play as the backbone of our economy and in securing America’s future prosperity.

The President and Secretary Locke talked with the Council about:

  • Helping entrepreneurs get the financing they need to get started and helping existing business owners get the financing they need to expand their businesses,
  • Ensuring that our workforce is equipped with the skills they need to out-compete the rest of the world,
  • And bolstering job growth at home by promoting American exports across the globe, especially in 21st century industries like clean energy.

See more in this White House blog post.

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