[Senate Hearing 117-180]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-180
COVID-19 RECOVERY: SUPPORTING WORKERS
AND MODERNIZING THE WORKFORCE
THROUGH QUALITY EDUCATION, TRAINING,
AND EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING COVID-19 RECOVERY, FOCUSING ON SUPPORTING WORKERS AND
MODERNIZING THE WORKFORCE THROUGH QUALITY EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
__________
APRIL 20, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-760 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chair
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont RICHARD BURR, North Carolina,
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TINA SMITH, Minnesota MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado MITT ROMNEY, Utah
TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Evan T. Schatz, Staff Director
David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
John Righter, Deputy Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2021
Page
Committee Members
Murray, Hon. Patty, Chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions, Opening statement................................ 1
Burr, Hon. Richard, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from the State
of North Carolina, Opening statement........................... 3
Witnesses
Flynn, Maria, President and CEO, Jobs for the Future, Boston, MA. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Summary statement............................................ 17
Thomas, Deniece, Deputy Commissioner of Workforce Learning and
Development, Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce
Development, Nashville, TN..................................... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Summary statement............................................ 21
Ralls, Scott, President, Wake Technical Community College,
Raleigh, NC.................................................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Summary statement............................................ 27
Mendoza, Alejandro, Human Resources Director, Optimax Systems
Inc., Ontario, NY.............................................. 28
Prepared statement........................................... 30
Summary statement............................................ 33
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.
Murray, Hon. Patty:
National Urban League letter................................. 56
Hassan, Hon. Maggie:
Statement of The Society for Human Resource Management....... 57
COVID-19 RECOVERY: SUPPORTING WORKERS
AND MODERNIZING THE WORKFORCE
THROUGH QUALITY EDUCATION, TRAINING,
AND EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
----------
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patty Murray, Chair
of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Murray [presiding], Casey, Kaine, Hassan,
Smith, Rosen, Hickenlooper, Burr, Cassidy, Murkowski, Braun,
and Tuberville.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY
The Chair. Good morning. The Senate Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order.
Today, we are holding a hearing on how we can strengthen
our Nation's workforce programs in light of the jobs crisis
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ranking Member Burr and I will
each have an opening statement, and then Senator Burr and I
will introduce today's witnesses. After the witnesses give
their testimony, Senators will each have five minutes for a
round of questions.
Before we begin, I do want to walk through the COVID-19
safety protocols in place today. We will follow the advice of
the Attending Physician and Sergeant at Arms in conducting this
hearing. We are all very grateful to our Clerks and everyone
who has worked hard to get this set up and to help everyone
stay safe and healthy.
Committee Members are seated at least six feet apart, and
some Senators are participating by videoconference. And while
we are unable to have the hearing fully open to the public or
media for in-person attendance, live video is available on our
Committee website at help.senate.gov. And, if you are in need
of accommodations, including closed captioning, you can reach
out to the Committee or the Office of Congressional
Accessibility Services.
We are here today because our Nation is in the middle of
the most unequal jobs crisis in modern history. Millions of
people have lost jobs they relied on to put food on the table,
keep a roof over their heads, pay their bills, and afford a
post-secondary education, and some estimates suggest at least a
third of COVID-related job loss will be permanent.
Millions of people have also been forced out of the
workforce, including by issues like our Nation's shortage of
quality, affordable childcare, and millions of workers are
struggling. We know a disproportionately high number have been
women, people of color, people with disabilities, and people in
rural communities.
This is not a problem that is going to fix itself. Not in
Washington State, not in North Carolina, not anywhere. Because,
while the people facing the worst rates of unemployment and
underemployment are those who are paid the lowest wages, a
recent study suggests future job growth will be mainly in
higher-wage occupations, meaning workers will need access to
greater competencies and skills to have more opportunities for
employment.
For example, with so many businesses adapting their
operations and service models as a result of the pandemic, the
demand for digital skills has accelerated. Yet, according to
the National Skills Coalition, at least 48 million Americans
lack foundational digital skills.
But, the problem is not simply about helping employers find
skilled workers. It is about providing workers new
opportunities, tearing down barriers, helping people find
quality jobs that lead to economic self-sufficiency.
While it is important the workforce system adapts to the
needs of employers, this cannot be the only focus. We must
provide workers with pathways to good jobs and support lifelong
learning opportunities. That is why our Nation's workforce
programs are so important. Apprenticeship and other job
training programs can help people stay competitive and grow in
the careers they have, or develop new skills, start new
careers.
But, we have to make sure these programs are truly working
for working families. That means providing services and support
people need to get into training programs and stay in them,
like childcare to help them manage a busy family schedule, or
financial support to help cover costs associated with an
education or training program.
It means tearing down barriers that can make these programs
hardest to reach for those who most need them, like formerly
incarcerated people, people who have been unemployed for a long
time, youth who are neither in school nor participating in the
labor market.
It means making sure we are really reaching the people who
are struggling the most by accounting for longstanding
inequities in the workforce.
We also have to keep in mind the ultimate goal here is
economic security for workers and families, which is not just
about how quickly people can get trained and get jobs, but how
good that training is and the quality of jobs associated with
that training.
It is about making sure workers are getting good wages and
benefits, making sure they have the data and guidance they need
to make informed decisions, helping workers get credentials
that are portable and relevant if they decide to look for
another job, and preparing them for fields where there is high
demand, like STEM, clean energy, manufacturing, and
infrastructure--fields where President Biden is also proposing
significant investments--and healthcare and public health
sectors in which the pandemic has worsened longstanding
shortages.
I know in my home state, tribal hospitals are understaffed,
and some rural counties lack an adequate number of healthcare
providers, underscoring the need for far more primary care
physicians, nurses, and specialists in fields like behavioral
health, oral health, women's health, and pediatrics.
To tackle all of these challenges and strengthen our
workforce the way we need to, we also have to make fundamental
investments, like the $15 billion to support workforce training
programs I called for in my Relaunching America's Workforce
Act, and the $100 billion for workforce development and
programs President Biden called for in his American Jobs Plan.
We have a lot of work ahead of us to respond to this
pandemic and the current job crisis, and a lot at stake for
families in my home State of Washington and across the Country,
who are counting on us to make sure workers, who have been set
back by this pandemic, have the opportunity to get new skills,
new jobs, and economic security.
I will also say for me--this is really personal--one of the
reasons my family was able to make it through hard times was
because my mom was able to go back to school, get training, and
ultimately a higher-paying job, and it made a huge difference
for us. So many families today have had the rug completely
pulled out from under them, and I want to make sure people in
Washington State and across the Country have that same
opportunity.
I am optimistic about what this Committee can accomplish
together. We have got a bipartisan track record on workforce
issues, like when we passed the Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act in 2014; and when we reauthorized the Perkins
Career and Technical Education Act in 2018.
I know my colleagues on the Committee on both sides of the
aisle are focused on this important issue, so I really feel we
have got an opportunity to come together, get this done, and
help workers across the Country. So, I look forward to working
with my colleagues, to listen to the stakeholders, look at
commonsense solutions, and build on our bipartisan track record
here in the months ahead.
With that, I will recognize Ranking Member Burr for his
opening remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR
Senator Burr. Good morning, Madam Chair, and I want to
thank you for working with me to schedule this hearing. I am
glad we are working together in a bipartisan effort to
modernize our workforce programs, and I hope the Democrat
leadership will stop their threats to use partisan
reconciliation bills and commit to listening to Republican
ideas, working together as we are doing on this Committee.
I want to thank our witnesses, both those that are here in
person and those that are here virtually. Today, we are here to
discuss the state of the American workforce.
COVID-19 has changed a lot about the way we live, including
the way we learn and the way we work. Before the pandemic, our
economy was booming. Jobs were available, and unemployment was
at a fifty-year low. Today, a year later, nearly 10 million
people are out of work. Unemployment is at 6 percent, and some
suggest 9 percent.
At the same time, as of today, more than 84.3 million
Americans have been fully vaccinated. By May, every American
who wants a vaccine should be able to get one. And I suspect
very soon, our bigger problem is going to be convincing people
to get a vaccine rather than a concern about the supply.
If we want to return to a booming economy, we need to plan
to get there. As part of that plan, we need to make sure we
have better systems in place that are equipped to connect job
seekers, employers, and education opportunities. Last month,
Chair Murray and I asked the public to send in ideas for this
Committee to consider to strengthen workforce development and
job training. I thank the Chair for joining me in this call to
action and for her commitment to address these issues in a
bipartisan way.
As we begin these discussions on how best to help America's
workers get the skills they need, we have to look at what we
have already done and what new ideas we need to include. We can
start with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. This
is our Country's primary law focused on workforce development,
and it is due to be reauthorized. We need to take this
opportunity to see how this important law can be updated to
meet the needs of workers and employers.
What does that look like? We need to be innovative. More
bureaucracy and paperwork is not the answer. We have to look at
the system as a whole and make sure it is equipped to meet the
demands of 2021 and beyond. If we just add another layer of
requirements to an already-complex system and call it a day, we
have not done our job.
If we want these programs to prepare people for good jobs,
employers need to have a seat at the table. If training
programs do not teach anyone the skills employers are actually
looking for, then we have not really helped anyone.
We need to make sure that this law fosters strong
collaboration between the public and private sector. Job
seekers should know that if they go to a one-stop center, they
will get the assistance they need to find a good job. Employers
should know that if they need skilled workers, the workforce
system can help.
Last year, state and local workforce boards had to respond
to the pandemic and quickly adapt to a world where virtual
services became the norm. These systems should be able to
rapidly respond to meet the needs of their community, and we
need to make sure that the law supports that responsiveness.
Many Members of this Committee are also interested in
expanding apprenticeship programs. The apprenticeship model is
a great way for individuals to earn a wage while learning an
in-demand skill.
Unfortunately, many employers are unable to access the
Federal system because of red tape and rules that favor labor
unions. We saw a glimpse of the type of innovation we need
through the Department of Labor's rule on industry-recognized
apprenticeship programs that was issued by the previous
administration. This policy can expand these apprenticeship
models to include more industries and provide new opportunities
for training.
To build on this idea, a bipartisan apprenticeship bill, we
will need to find a way to support both traditional, registered
apprenticeship programs and programs that are developed and
recognized by industry. I understand that there are important
conversations to be had about accountability and quality for
industry-recognized apprenticeship programs, and, quite
frankly, I welcome that.
For example, we should look to work done with our military
veterans and how we have successfully helped veterans leave the
military with training from the military, and then test out
state-based occupational licensing standards and be certified
for occupational licensure in that state.
In 2018, the program defense bill, we create a pathway for
military-trained medics to ease into civilian life more
efficiently without having to jump through a lot of unnecessary
hoops.
We need all the tools in our toolbox to get people back to
work, and an above-all approach is appropriate. But, that does
not mean we need to create a variety of new programs. The
Federal Government already has dozens of training programs
across multiple Federal agencies. We need to take a look at how
we could improve and better align these programs, not just add
a new layer of programs and mandates so that state and local
leaders, employers, and job seekers can reap the maximum
benefits.
Workforce development has been and should continue to be a
space with bipartisan solutions. In 2014, Congress achieved a
bipartisan victory when the Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act was signed into law. We saw the same effort in
2018 with the reauthorization of Perkins Career and Technical
Education Act.
I know this Committee in this chamber can achieve the same
success this year. Bipartisan solutions exist to all of these
problems. Today's hearing is the first step to finding them.
This is just the beginning of the conversation. We all have a
big task ahead of us.
I look forward to working with our witnesses, the Chair,
our colleagues to get our workforce programs up to speed and
our Country back to work. I thank the Chair for her indulgence.
The Chair. Thank you, Ranking Member Burr.
We will now introduce today's witnesses. I am very pleased
to start by welcoming Maria Flynn. Ms. Flynn is the President
and CEO of Jobs for the Future, a national non-profit that is
focused on the American workforce and education systems; a
former member of the Senior Executive Service in the U.S.
Department of Labor; and a national authority on the future of
labor, the role of technology in the labor market, career
pathways for underserved individuals, and employer engagement.
Ms. Flynn, thank you for joining us today. Welcome.
Next, I would like to introduce Deniece Thomas. Ms. Thomas
is the Deputy Commissioner of Workforce Learning and
Development for the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce
Development; the state workforce liaison for the National
Governors Association; and serves as vice chair of the
Employment and Training Committee for the National Association
of State Workforce Agencies.
Welcome, Ms. Thomas. We are glad to have you with us today.
Next, I will turn it over to Ranking Member Burr, who will
introduce Dr. Scott Ralls.
Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am pleased to welcome Dr. Scott Ralls to our hearing
today. Dr. Ralls serves as President of Wake Technical
Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Wake Tech is North Carolina's largest community college
with 70,000 students, six campuses, and a variety of online
learning options. Wake Tech offers over 200 degrees, diplomas,
and certificates, as well as other short-term programs to
prepare students for in-demand careers.
As president, Dr. Ralls has led efforts to support student
success and further Wake Tech's impact on economic development
in the region by increasing employer engagement, developing
stackable credentials and degree pathways, and creating the
WakeWorks Apprenticeship Program.
Previous, Dr. Ralls served as President of Northern
Virginia Community College and, I might say, Madam Chair, as
President of the North Carolina Community College System.
Scott, I look forward to your testimony today. I thank you
for being here.
The Chair. Thank you.
Dr. Ralls, welcome. Thank you for joining us.
Finally, I would like to introduce Alejandro Mendoza. Mr.
Mendoza is the Human Resources Manager for Optimax Systems Inc.
of Rochester, New York, and was recently appointed to serve on
a national manufacturing panel that will advise the Biden
Administration on its Made in All of America initiative.
Mr. Mendoza, thank you for joining us today.
With that, we will begin our testimony. And, Ms. Flynn, we
will begin with you if you would like to give your opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF MARIA FLYNN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, JOBS FOR THE
FUTURE, BOSTON, MA
Ms. Flynn. Good morning, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr,
and Members of the Committee. My name is Maria Flynn. I am
President and CEO of Jobs for the Future. We are a national,
non-profit organization that has worked for nearly 40 years to
drive change in America's workforce and education systems to
promote economic advancement for all, especially
underrepresented individuals.
This past year has been devastating for America's workers,
with over 40 million U.S. workers losing their jobs and
financial ground since the start of the pandemic. While last
month's unemployment numbers are trending down, we still have
9.7 million workers who remain unemployed, four million more
Americans who are out of work now than in February 2020. And
these numbers do not reflect those who have dropped out of the
labor market completely or who are working part time or in low-
wage jobs.
Probably most devastating is the fact that the workers who
are suffering the greatest economic hardships as a result of
the crisis are low-wage earners and individuals with no post-
secondary credentials, many of whom are Black, Latino,
indigenous, or from other underrepresented populations. Women
have also been disproportionately hurt by the crisis, losing
jobs at far higher rates than men.
When COVID hit last March, our education and workforce
systems were caught flat footed, unprepared for the sudden,
dramatic economic downturn. While we may hope that this is a
once-in-a-lifetime crisis, the pandemic has exposed how
critical it is to be prepared for the worst, while keeping up
with the rapid pace of change in our economy. Even in times of
low unemployment, we must build and scale solutions that
prepare workers today for the demands of tomorrow.
The U.S. needs a workforce ecosystem that is modern, agile,
equitable, resilient, and innovative enough to keep up with the
skill needs of individuals and in-demand employers alike. It is
what all of our people deserve. To make that a reality,
Congress should take a holistic approach to looking at the
existing array of programs and how they can be modernized and
streamlined.
The U.S. has an array of post-secondary education, skills
training, and workforce development programs that provide vital
education and employment services for America's workers. These
programs and institutions have worked hard to adapt throughout
the pandemic, but these systems were built in large part for a
different era, are not adequately funded, nor agile enough to
fully meet the needs of America's workforce, especially in
today's turbulent economy.
The Federal Government last made significant changes to the
Nation's primary workforce development system in 2014 through
the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, or WIOA. However,
the system has not been adequately funded, nor is it currently
designed to meet the extensive needs of the Nation's workforce.
The WIOA system is responsible for a wide range of
functions, from the direct provision of services to job seekers
and employers, to our Nation's one-stop career centers, to
arranging for skills training to the extent resources are
available. Workforce boards are also responsible for convening
system partners in support of comprehensive service delivery in
communities and for engaging with employers and system
stakeholders in support of strategic initiatives, including
career pathways and sector strategies.
Successful WIOA programs are doing this well. However, the
system's limited resources are spread very thin. Performance
across the more than 500 local workforce areas varies, and the
entire workforce system needs significant modernization.
We need a workforce system that is adequately funded. In
Fiscal Year 2021, funding for WIOA's Dislocated Worker Program
was just $1.3 billion for the entire Country. The total for
WIOA adults, youth, and dislocated workers combined was just
$3.6 billion. In comparison, funding for Pell Grants is close
to $30 billion, but cannot fund many short-term, workforce-
oriented programs.
To address the Nation's training needs, we would like to
see significant increase in funding for skills training through
WIOA, an expansion of Pell to include high-quality, short-term
credentialing programs, and exploration of other funding
mechanisms, such as income-share agreements.
Of equal importance to increased investments are critical
changes to the ecosystem, such as a robust and expansive career
navigation system for students, job seekers, and workers that
is offered through an in-person and virtual service options.
A lifelong learning system that is easily accessible, where
the structure and delivery of education and skills training is
transformed so that training is accelerated.
Adoption of evidence-based strategies, including sector
focus and career pathways systems.
The creation of grants to community college systems for the
scaling of models, such as those tested under the TAACCCT
Program.
Modernization of the system using full use of the latest
digital technologies to expand and improve service delivery for
participants.
Strong ability to meet the needs of diverse populations,
including opportunity youth who are dislocated from school and
employment, as well as people of color who have been
exceptionally hard hit by the pandemic.
We must find authentic ways to incorporate worker voice in
the design of systems and programs.
Finally, deep partnership with employers and other key
stakeholders to leverage resources, extend capacity, and
provide an expanded array of service.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the
Committee. The American workforce development system is a
crucial piece of our Country's economic mobility puzzle.
However, at present, it is undervalued, underfunded, and in
need of modernization. We urge you to invest in and consider
changes holistically so the Nation's workforce system can meet
the complex needs of today and the future.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Flynn follows:]
prepared statement of maria flynn
Good morning Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the
Senate HELP Committee. My name is Maria Flynn. I am President and CEO
of Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit organization that has
worked for nearly 40 years to drive change in America's workforce and
education systems to promote economic advancement for all--especially
for people who earn low incomes, have been underserved by our current
systems, and are underrepresented in high-wage, high-growth jobs.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the United States workforce
development ecosystem was overdue for increased investments and
transformation to meet the vast skill and employment requirements of
today's workers and employers and prepare our labor force for the jobs
of tomorrow. The pandemic has exponentially increased this need for
change. Millions of Americans have lost jobs that won't return and they
require new skills to get back to work in our ever-evolving economy. We
must learn from this crisis and use this moment of urgency as an
opportunity to make the kinds of changes that are necessary if our
economy is to rebound, our employers are to remain competitive, and our
workers are to thrive.
The Devastation of the Pandemic Creates an Opportunity We Must Seize
It's indisputable that the pandemic has been devastating for many
American workers and the children, parents, and spouses who rely on
them to help provide life's necessities. More than 40 million U.S.
workers have lost jobs and substantial financial ground since the start
of the pandemic. \1\ While unemployment trended down in March 2021, our
Nation still faces 9.7 million people who remain unemployed--4 million
more than in February 2020. \2\ And we must remember the millions of
additional people who have given up on finding work and dropped out of
the labor market completely--and the many people who are trying to get
by on part-time and low-wage jobs.
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\1\ Nelson D. Schwartz, Ben Casselman, and Ella Koeze, ``How Bad
Is Unemployment? `Literally Off the Charts' '' The New York Times, May
8, 2020, https://nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/08/business/economy/
april-jobs-report.html.
\2\ Bureau of Labor Statistics, ``The Employment Situation--March
2021,'' news release no. USDL-21-0582, U.S. Department of Labor, April
2, 2021, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf.
Most devastating is the fact that the workers who are suffering the
greatest economic hardship as a result of the crisis are the people our
society has repeatedly left behind: low-wage earners and individuals
with no postsecondary credentials--many of whom are Black, Latino, or
from other underrepresented populations. Frontline workers, who missed
out on the decade of growth that followed the Great Recession, were on
shaky economic ground even before COVID-19. Women have been
disproportionately hurt by the crisis, losing jobs at far higher rates
than men, and squeezed by the closing of schools and the decimation of
the U.S. child care sector. Nearly 3 million American women have left
the labor force over the past year. \3\ Black workers and Hispanic and
Asian women face significantly higher unemployment than other racial
and ethnic groups. At the end of the fourth quarter of last year, the
gap between white and Black unemployment grew to more than 4 percentage
points. \4\
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\3\ Megan Cerullo, ``Nearly 3 Million U.S. Women Have Dropped Out
of the Labor Force in the Past Year,'' CBS News Moneywatch, February 5,
2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-crisis-3-million-women-labor-
force/.
\4\ ``Table E-16. Unemployment Rates by Age, Sex, Race, and
Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity,'' Labor Force Statistics from the Current
Population Survey, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, last modified
January 8, 2021, https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpsee-e16.htm.
To help people return to the workforce and find better jobs than
they had before, we must enable them to overcome the multiple barriers
that impede their economic advancement. Since opportunities for
education and economic advancement have not been shared equitably in
the United States, it is critical that we close gaps in skills,
credentials, employment attainment, and career progression associated
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
with gender, race, ethnicity, and income status.
In the 21st-century economy, most in-demand jobs have required at
least some postsecondary education and training. Before the pandemic,
the United States faced severe shortages of workers with associate's
degrees and certain technical credentials. The current crisis has
exacerbated this trend. Economists have characterized the pandemic as
an ``automation forcing event'' and increased demand for new ways of
working require new kinds of knowledge, skills, and abilities. \5\
According to a recent study by The McKinsey Global Institute, more than
half of the low-wage workers currently in declining occupations will
need to shift to new occupations that require different skills. The
study found that demand for workers in health care and STEM fields
could grow now more than before the pandemic--and that ``workers will
need to learn more social and emotional skills, as well as
technological skills, in order to move into occupations in higher-wage
brackets.'' \6\
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\5\ Allison Dulin Salisbury, ``COVID-19 May Become `An Automation
Forcing Event': Already Vulnerable Workers Look to Reskilling For Path
Forward,'' Forbes, May 7, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
allisondulinsalisbury/2020/05/07/covid-19-may-become-an-automation-
forcing-event-already-vulnerable-workers-look-to-reskilling-for-path-
forward.
\6\ Susan Lund et al., The Future of Work After COVID-19 (New
York, NY: McKinsey Global Institute, February 2021), https://
www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-
after-covid-19.
It is clear that reskilling is more important than ever. Millions
of workers will be challenged to retool themselves for new roles and
industries. Already we are seeing changes in the kinds of postsecondary
programs that people are seeking. A growing body of evidence has
identified an uptick in demand for shorter-term credentialing programs
designed to help people learn the skills necessary to get back to work
quickly. \7\ However, our financial aid systems rarely cover short-term
workforce-oriented programs--even those with strong outcomes. These are
some of the most important, yet still only some, of the challenges we
face.
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\7\ Paul Fain, ``Alternative Credentials on the Rise,'' Inside
Higher Ed, August 27, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/
08/27/interest-spikes-short-term-online-credentials-will-it-be-
sustained.
In order to create an inclusive economic recovery, ensure lasting
economic growth, and maintain our Nation's economic competitiveness, we
need to meet the needs of individual workers, employers, and broader
societal forces simultaneously. Looking at our current workforce
ecosystem, it's clear that it cannot keep up with current demands. It's
time to invest in transforming our array of workforce development and
postsecondary programs into a truly modern system that is agile, well-
resourced, equitable, and resilient, capable of innovating to take on
whatever the future brings.
Our Current Workforce Development System
Our Nation's current workforce development system is an array of
postsecondary education, skills training, and workforce programs that
provide vital education and employment services for America's workers.
Many of these programs and institutions have worked hard to adapt to
the new landscape the pandemic created--switching from in-person
services to remote delivery and adjusting programming to meet the
changing needs of the labor market. But the system, much of which was
designed in previous eras, is not adequately funded nor agile enough to
fully meet the skill needs of America's workers or employers in today's
turbulent economy.
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)
The Federal Government's primary workforce development system is
authorized under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA),
which was enacted in 2014. WIOA's goal was to update the system and
make a number of changes to programs under its jurisdiction in order to
do the following:
Better align workforce programs with the skill needs
of in-demand industries and occupations
Adopt evidence-based strategies, such as career
pathways, sector strategies, and connections to apprenticeship
programs, to help jobseekers and workers attain industry-
recognized postsecondary credentials needed for in-demand
careers
Improve services provided through the ``one-stop''
delivery system for jobseekers and employers
Strengthen the strategic functions of workforce
boards
Encourage regional approaches to workforce
development
Better align WIOA initiatives with partner programs
to leverage resources, system reach, and participant outcomes
Even with these changes, the WIOA system has not received adequate
funding, nor is it currently designed to meet the Nation's extensive
career navigation, skills development, and worker transition needs as a
stand-alone program.
The WIOA system performs many functions in our broader workforce
ecosystem. It serves as a connector of programs, a convener of partners
and stakeholders, and a translator of labor market information. It's
also the access point through which learners, jobseekers, and workers
gather the labor market and career information they need to make
informed employment decisions, and where skills training can be
arranged when resources are available. WIOA is responsible for the
nationwide system of one-stop centers, which provide an array of
employment services and connect customers to work-related training and
education.
WIOA programs are also places where employers can go to search for
skilled workers and to receive services in support of their human
capital needs. Whether through services provided by business
representatives or directly provided through American Job Centers,
workforce systems arrange for on-the-job and customized training, work
with employers to identify skill and employment needs, provide layoff
aversion services, and work to identify quality jobs. Workforce
development boards are intended to play pivotal strategic roles in the
design of comprehensive workforce development systems; engage with
regional employers; lead innovative initiatives, including career
pathways and sector strategies; and leverage additional resources to
support workforce programming.
Successful WIOA programs are carrying out these and other high-
quality evidence-based strategies to address the employment needs of
their regional economies. However, the system's limited resources are
spread too thin, performance across the more than 500 local workforce
areas varies, and the entire workforce ecosystem needs significant
modernization. The workforce system has also been forced to turn to
virtual service delivery over the past year, with limited exceptions,
due to the pandemic--a significant challenge for a system that was
initially designed around brick-and-mortar structures.
The Workforce System We Need: Modern, Agile, Equitable, Resilient,
Innovative, and Well Resourced
We know that calls for reform are not new. Before joining JFF, I
served as a member of the Senior Executive Service at the U.S.
Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. In that
capacity, I worked closely with Congress on the design and
implementation of the Workforce Investment Act, the legislation that
served as the foundation for WIOA. All told, I have focused my 30-year
career on these issues, following in my father's footsteps. In fact,
back in 1986, he testified before the House Ways and Means Committee
calling for reforms to the Unemployment Insurance system so that it
would be ready to meet the demand caused by future unemployment.
Yes, there have been calls for reform before. But this time truly
is different. When COVID hit last March, our education and workforce
systems were caught flat-footed, unprepared for the sudden, dramatic
economic downturn. While we can hope that this has been a crisis of a
generation or even a century, we have seen how critical it is to be
fully prepared, which means developing the agility we need to meet
rapidly changing demand in major sectors of our economy. And even in
times of low unemployment, which we're all hoping to see again soon, we
know that the jobs of tomorrow will look very different from the jobs
of today.
Workforce development has become a lifelong mandate for every
worker. Upskilling, reskilling, transition assistance, and career
navigation services, are essential to help every individual create and
sustain a career that will enable them to support themselves and their
loved ones. Employers must also be able to readily access the talent
they need to compete. The nation's workforce development ecosystem--
programs authorized under WIOA and its related partner programs--must
work collaboratively to meet these needs.
The United States needs a workforce ecosystem that is modern,
agile, equitable, resilient, and innovative enough to keep up with the
skill needs of individuals and in-demand employers alike. It is what
all of our people deserve. To make that a reality, Congress should take
a holistic look at how these programs can be modernized and streamlined
to meet the needs of our economy and workers today and in the future.
Specifically, we'd like to call attention to the following essential
changes in the system's design.
We need a robust career navigation system. Few people have access
to effective career navigation services today. We need to develop a
comprehensive approach to helping students, jobseekers, and incumbent
workers navigate the increasingly complex labor market and make well-
informed education, career pathway, and employment decisions that will
make or break their ability to support themselves and their families.
These services should be offered in a variety of ways, at a variety of
times, with in-person and remote options, so they are equally
accessible to all.
We need a flexible, lifelong learning system. We need a skills
development system that is adequately financed and easily accessible,
where the structure and delivery of education and skills training are
transformed. We need training options that allow learners to progress
at an accelerated pace, award credit for prior learning, and offer
stackable credentials that learners can accumulate as they move along
pathways to further learning and degrees. And we need to find ways to
capture skills and credentials in skills ``passports'' that are
recognized across the education and workforce systems, and by
employers. Equally critical is providing support services, ranging from
academic tutoring to food assistance, transportation vouchers, and
more, to ensure people can focus on their futures.
We need a system that makes full use of the latest in digital
technologies to expand and improve service delivery for participants.
We have learned through this pandemic that we must significantly
bolster our ability to provide technology-enabled career navigation and
training to meet the changing skill needs of in-demand employers and
deliver customer experiences that meet the needs and expectations of
today's jobseekers.
We need a system that supports the scaling of evidence-based models
and strategies, including sector-focused, career pathways, and
apprenticeship programs, and a wide array of work-based learning
programs which provide essential experiences for adults and young
people on pathways to family supporting careers.
We need a system that partners in meaningful ways with employers,
both on the design of education and skills training programs, and to
encourage employers to provide training for their own frontline
workers, set goals for diverse and inclusive hiring, identify ways to
improve job quality for workers, and to adopt skills-based hiring
practices for making employment decisions. Both the public and private
sector have important roles to play in talent development and in
designing an approach that maximizes the impact of each.
We need a system that can successfully meet the needs of diverse
populations, including Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, and others
who have been hit hard by the pandemic. These are populations that have
not shared equitably in earlier recoveries, and have not benefited
equitably in America's education and workforce systems. We must be
intentional in our efforts to ensure equity in workforce programs and
their outcomes; and we must find authentic ways to incorporate worker
voice in the design of systems and programs.
We need a system that values and invests in opportunity youth--one
that builds bridges that link disconnected youth and young adults to
postsecondary education and employment. This system would embrace
evidence-based strategies that work for this population and expand
opportunities for work-based learning and employment that lead to in-
demand careers.
Achieving these goals will require reforms across the entire
workforce development ecosystem. Siloed policy development for U.S.
workforce, higher education, career and technical education, poverty
alleviation, and economic development systems can no longer be
accepted. These systems must all be considered--and transformed--so
they can work together to form the critical workforce preparation
ecosystem needed today and in the future.
We Can't Skimp on Workforce Investments
Federal funding for postsecondary education and workforce
development programs amounts to about $58 billion per year. That total
includes education and training assistance for U.S. veterans and Pell
Grants which help low-income students pay for college. \8\ Pell Grants
make postsecondary education possible for millions of Americans who
couldn't otherwise afford it. But the program is not flexible enough to
meet the needs of a growing number of workers and learners who want to
pursue short-term credentials or accelerated training. And while the GI
Bill and related veterans employment assistance programs provide
critical aid to former members of the military as they prepare for new
jobs in civilian life, there are fewer options for nonveterans.
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\8\ JFF, America's Untapped Workforce: Federal Programs to Help
Develop a Critical Talent Pipeline (Boston, MA: JFF, March 2019),
https://jfforg-prod-new.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/BRF-DC-
Untapped-Workforce-Federal-Programs-030719-FINAL.pdf.
When Pell Grants and veterans programs are taken out of the
equation, the United States invests only about $16 billion annually in
programs that provide workforce-focused education, employment, and
training assistance for the rest of America's students, jobseekers, and
workers. This funding is divided among 17 different education and
workforce development programs, including career and technical
education, adult education, and vocational rehabilitation programs, and
initiatives authorized under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act (WIOA). In Fiscal Year 2020, funding for WIOA state formula
grants--the primary employment and training assistance resource for
low-income adults, youth, and dislocated workers--was a scant $3.6
billion for all 50 states. \9\ .Only $1.3 billion of that went to
employment and training assistance for dislocated workers.
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\9\ JFF, America's Untapped Workforce, https://jfforg-prod-
new.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/BRF-DC-Untapped-Workforce-Federal-
Programs-030719-FINAL.pdf.
It is no surprise that the Nation's workforce development system
cannot keep up with the immense needs of workers who have been
devastated by the COVID-19 crisis, despite the efforts of many high-
quality and innovative state and local systems. A June 2020 report by
the previous administration's White House Council of Economic Advisors
noted that the United States would have to spend an additional $80.4
billion on employment and training per year to match the average
expenditures of other Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) member countries (based on percentage of GDP). With
millions of Americans out of work and millions of others underemployed,
the United States must do better.
Recommendations for Transforming the Nation's Workforce Development
System
I. Increase Investments in America's Workforce.
JFF supports funding for workforce programs at levels consistent
with those proposed for workforce development in the Biden
Administration's The American Jobs Plan ($100 billion). That level of
funding would support the employment and skill needs of U.S. workers
and employers, allow for needed transformation of workforce programs,
and bring workforce investments into parity with those of other OECD
countries. We urge Congress to do the following:
Dedicate $10 billion in funding for comprehensive
career navigation services, including a graduated public-
private matching requirement for states and regions
Significantly increase investments in skills
development in the following ways:
Y Provide $50 billion for WIOA skills accounts, adult
education, apprenticeships, and other forms of high-
quality skills-based training for adults and youth
Y Expand Pell Grant eligibility to include high-
quality short-term credentialing programs
Y Examine the potential of alternative financing
mechanisms, such as income share agreements (ISA) and
tax incentives for training, with adequate guardrails
to protect consumers
Y Provide incentives for employers to engage in
workforce efforts and invest in frontline worker
training
Invest $10 billion in the alignment and modernization
of the workforce development ecosystem by funding:
Y Systems change research, with an advanced research
projects agency for the Department of Labor (modeled
after DARPA), where rich new data sources, advances in
data analysis, and experiments in training and
technology can be turned into practical solutions for
workers and employers
Y A Federal technology fund to expand states' and
regions' use of digital technologies
Y Cross-system investments in adult education,
community colleges, and workforce development systems
focused on increased collaboration, effective
programming, professional development, and system
innovation
Y Scaling of reforms in the delivery of education and
training through Federal-state partnership grants,
similar to reforms funded through TAACCCT
Invest $10 billion in comprehensive programs for
opportunity youth to serve an additional 1 million to 2 million
young people annually
Invest in job creation, subsidized employment, and
training opportunities in upcoming infrastructure, green
energy, and health workforce initiatives
II. Make Systemic Changes in the Workforce Development
Infrastructure
To get ahead of the challenges workers face in today's economy, we
need a new era of research, innovation, and modernization of the
Nation's workforce development ecosystem. To help achieve this,
Congress should take the following steps:
At the Federal level:
Fund research and development, providing assistance
to states and regions on the use of technology and the latest
innovative tools and strategies
Fund the departments of Labor and Education to
provide capacity-building and technical assistance to state and
local staff--a downside of having a decentralized system is the
lack of standardization in the delivery and quality of services
Ensure that the departments of Labor and Education
disseminate the findings from prior evaluations and products
developed under prior Federal investments, in actionable ways,
to provide lessons for future actions and avoid the need to
reinvent the wheel
Fully align disconnected Federal employment and
training activities and funding at the Federal, state, and
regional levels through a streamlined workforce development
fund
At the state and regional levels:
Require systemic regional approaches in workforce
development that are tied to regional economic development
efforts (strengthening provisions already in WIOA)
Dedicate funding for regional career pathways and
sector strategies in the delivery of education and training,
with expectations established for all partner programs
Elevate the role of regional workforce boards with
decision-making authority over comprehensive workforce
programming with explicit funding for such activities
Expand the vision of workforce development systems,
accompanied by robust professional development supports for new
modes of service delivery, tech-enabled services, data
analysis, and interoperability with high-quality private
offerings
Implement changes in the structure and delivery of
education and training that significantly expand opportunities
for accelerated skills and credential attainment
III. Develop a Robust, Modernized Career Navigation System
The WIOA workforce system provides career navigation assistance to
youth and adults who are enrolled to receive services under its
programs, but these services are in need of modernization and are not
accessible to non-WIOA participants. JFF urges Congress to do the
following:
Establish a robust career navigation system
throughout the United States that:
Y Is comprehensive, offering real-time labor market
information, career counseling, skills assessments,
skill matching, and referral to training strategies;
access to career pathways and accelerated reskilling
services; and access to support and reemployment
services
Y Provides all services virtually and through in-
person networks via American Job Centers and affiliated
sites (community colleges, secondary schools,
libraries, community-based organizations) to increase
access for all individuals, especially members of
underserved and underrepresented populations and people
in rural areas
Y Connects to existing national education and career
counseling platforms offered through multiple access
points (in person and virtually) and in multiple
languages
Y Augments traditional labor market information made
available through the Bureau of Labor Statistics with
publicly available real-time labor market information
currently available only through proprietary platforms
Y Increases the emphasis on and funding of
professional development, including approaches that use
new technologies and those that support racial equity
Establish a new entity called the Career Advising
Corps through the Corporation for National and Community
Service that works with the workforce system's career
navigation system and leverages emerging technology platforms.
IV. Create a Lifelong Learning System
The United States must invest in the education and training of its
workforce and make changes in the ways education and training are
provided to meet the needs of today's students, jobseekers, and workers
and to ensure equitable employment outcomes. JFF urges Congress to do
the following:
Expand skills financing to increase funding for
skills development in the following ways:
Y Establish skill grants under WIOA to pay for high-
quality training programs on WIOA's Employment Training
Provider Lists (ETPL) for training not covered by Pell
Y Expand tax advantaged skills training to encourage
individual and employer investments in education and
training, including Section 127 plans, lifelong
learning accounts, and Earned Income Tax Credits
Y Transform the structure and delivery of education
and skills training provided through workforce systems,
community colleges, and other high-quality providers to
ensure that skills training is more innovative and
agile; responsive to the skill needs of in-demand
employers; available in person and online; open to an
expanded array of high-quality training providers and
delivery structures with strong participant outcomes;
augmented with expanded earn-and-learn opportunities;
and scaling evidence-based strategies, including career
pathways and sector strategies
Y Create incentive grants for state community college
systems and for consortia of institutions to scale
evidence-based practices and innovations, including
those tested through TAACCCT, that transform the
Nation's community college systems.
V. Ensure That U.S. Workers Are Protected in Times of Transition
The Nation's response in helping workers who have lost jobs as a
result of the COVID-19 crisis has been mixed at best. While certain
shortcomings in unemployment insurance (UI) eligibility have been
addressed through COVID-19 relief legislation, too many workers remain
unemployed without adequate retraining and reemployment assistance, and
without access to essential benefits. To address the transition needs
of displaced workers, Congress should do the following:
Enact systemic UI reforms that retain the CARES Act's
expanded eligibility provisions, provide incentives for shared
work and part-time UI, and adopt other system innovations that
expand the flexibility and depth of coverage
Ensure that Federal infrastructure and job creation
initiatives provide employment opportunities for individuals
who have experienced long-term unemployment, and for
opportunity youth
Ensure greater connectivity and collaboration across
the UI and workforce development systems and expand
reemployment assistance that builds upon services provided
under the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment
program
VI. Ensure the Quality of Education and Training Programs
In today's economy, there is a significant increase in demand for
short-term occupational skills training. Individuals who are looking to
quickly reenter the labor market are increasingly pursuing education
that is tied to in-demand employment, and secondary and postsecondary
students are doing the same. This makes our ability to determine the
quality of short-term and other postsecondary education programs more
important than ever, especially as we consider public funding for such
programs. To address this need, Congress should take the following
steps:
Implement a universally accepted quality control
mechanism to ensure that programs and providers that receive
Federal workforce funding meet accepted levels of performance
based on participant outcomes.
Champion an interagency data connectivity and
transparency initiative to improve data availability and
promote its use by consumers making education, training, and
employment decisions. This initiative should promote effective
data privacy while building upon current efforts, such as the
College Scorecard and the WIOA Employment and Training Provider
List (ETPL).
Establish a national reporting process whereby all
federally funded education and workforce training programs must
provide data on the labor market outcomes of students and
participants, based on standards established by the departments
of Labor and Education.
Require that participant data related to the services
provided and program outcomes be disaggregated for each
subpopulation by race, ethnicity, sex, age, and socioeconomic
status. Policies should build in performance incentives for
providers based on outcomes for subpopulations served.
Require states to update their Eligible Training
Provider Lists quarterly. Such updates should consider access
to services and ongoing economic shifts in the labor market to
ensure that training options are relevant to current and
emerging in-demand industries and occupations. Consideration
should also be given to the establishment of a national-level
ETPL for high-quality training providers that operate
nationwide.
Extend WIOA measures to other education and training
programs included in system alignment efforts.
VII. Encourage Employer Engagement
Employer engagement is key to the success of workforce development
efforts. Employers must help inform the development and implementation
of workforce development programs to ensure that the skills and
credentials offered are of value to regional economies. Employers can
also implement new practices that better serve jobseekers and workers,
such as adopting skills-based hiring practices. To encourage these
behaviors, as well as increased employer investments in their own
frontline workers, Congress can take these actions:
Enhance business services provided through the
workforce system that reflect regional economic priorities and
are relevant to the needs of in-demand industries. Examples
include the following:
Y Investments in workforce intermediaries and industry
partnerships
Y Funding for the expansion of apprenticeships
Y Funding of professional development and other human
resources activities for midsize and small employers
that can focus on issues ranging from job quality and
diversity and inclusion to the use of workforce tools
and technologies
Provide economic incentives to employers for
investing in their current and future workers.
Support efforts, such as those being led by the Open
Skills Network, to accelerate the shift to skills-based hiring
through the development and implementation of a common skills
language used by employers, learners, jobseekers, and education
providers, including development of skills ``passports.''
Federal support for these efforts may include pilots that use
innovative technologies, such as blockchain, to ensure
portability and verification; convening key stakeholders; and
supporting research and development.
VIII. Target Programming to Individuals Facing Barriers to
Education and Employment
To address the needs of people who face the greatest barriers to
employment and who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19,
Congress can focus on providing supports like these:
Access to high-quality skills development
opportunities as well as on-ramps to career pathways. Federal
policy needs to promote skills development as an economic
mobility strategy by providing funding and expanding evidence-
based strategies, such as sector-focused career pathways.
Services that address the unique needs of members of
specific populations by helping them persist in education and
work.
Expanded opportunities to gain employment through
strategies that may include transitional jobs, subsidized
employment, earn-and-learn arrangements, and other models that
result in skills and credential attainment and lead to family
supporting careers.
IX. Increase Investments in and Programming for Opportunity Youth
Even before COVID-19, young people, especially young people of
color and those who come from low-income backgrounds, were facing
declining economic prospects. \10\ Youth unemployment rates were, and
continue to be, twice as high as the national average: 4.6 million
young adults ages 16 to 24 were out of school and unemployed before the
pandemic struck, and more than one-third of those young people were
living in poverty. This population, known as opportunity youth, has
grown significantly during the pandemic. Now roughly 10 million young
people are out of school (at both the high school and college levels)
and out of work. \11\ For these individuals, building skills and
gaining work experience are key to upward mobility, however the
pandemic has all but shut off opportunities for employment.
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\10\ JFF, Investments in Opportunity Youth Fuel Prosperity
(Boston, MA: JFF, December 4, 2018), https://www.jff.org/resources/
investments-opportunity-youth-fuel-prosperity.
\11\ Richard Fry and Amanda Barroso, ``Amid Coronavirus Outbreak,
Nearly 3 in 10 Young People Are `Disconnected,''' State Legislature
Magazine (Washington, DC: National Conference of State Legislatures,
August 6, 2020), https://www.ncsl.org/bookstore/state-legislatures-
magazine/covid-19-nearly-3-in-10-young-people-are-disconnected-
magazine2020.aspx.
To address the needs of vulnerable youth, Congress should take the
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following steps:
Increase investments in programs that serve this
population, as described earlier.
Continue to prioritize services for out-of-school
youth in WIOA youth programs, while also ensuring that the
Nation's K-12 education system devotes adequate funding and
attention to young people who are at risk of disengaging from
high school. We urge the expansion of policies that support
reengagement of these young people through evidence-based
strategies such as pathways approaches (such as Back on Track)
and other models with proven success.
Establish a new competitive grant program to serve
local areas with high concentrations of opportunity youth. This
program should align multiple initiatives and partners through
collective impact strategies for serving in-school and out-of-
school youth who are at risk of disconnection; expand evidence-
based strategies for helping opportunity youth succeed; and
focus on solutions that address the education and employment
needs of underrepresented youth, including members of Black,
Latino, and Indigenous populations, who have been historically
underserved, with special attention to racial equity.
Ensure that youth programs build upon evidence-based models and
service delivery strategies that have proved to be successful in
serving opportunity youth. These approaches include career navigation
services that use technology, such as MyBestBets; career pathways
models, such as JFF's Back on Track initiative, that provide on-ramps
to postsecondary education and employment opportunities that end with
the attainment of valued credentials and in-demand careers; expanded
opportunities to participate in work-based learning programs, including
pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships; and mentoring, mental health
services, trauma-informed counseling, and other critical wraparound
supports.
Conclusion
Before the onset of COVID-19, the United States was already facing
labor market disruption that was pushing policymakers, systems leaders,
and practitioners to rethink the status quo and design modern
approaches to address the skill needs of today's jobseekers, workers,
and employers. The pandemic exacerbated these shifts, causing a
devastating economic downturn that has left people, businesses, and
local economies struggling to survive.
Now is the time to transform our Nation's workforce development
system. We must devote more resources for skills development, modernize
career navigation services, offer more assistance to people who are
planning their career pathways, provide necessary transition assistance
to displaced workers, and ensure that our Nation's most underserved
populations are able to succeed. If we do these things, we will meet
the needs of today's workers and our evolving economy, while building a
strong foundation for the future.
JFF urges the Members of the HELP Committee and Congress to take
action and create a workforce system that works.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Senate HELP
Committee. I look forward to continuing to work with you on these
critical issues.
______
[summary statement of maria flynn]
This past year has been devastating for many American workers,
especially those who have been disproportionately impacted by the
pandemic: low-wage earners and individuals with no postsecondary
credentials, many of whom are Black, Latino, or from other
underrepresented populations. More than 40 million U.S. workers have
lost jobs and substantial financial ground since March 2020. While
unemployment trended down last month, our Nation still faces 9.7
million people who remain unemployed. And the latest figures do not
reflect the millions more who have dropped out of the labor market
completely or the many who are trying to get by on part-time and low-
wage jobs.
The majority of in-demand jobs today require at least some
postsecondary education and training, and this trend is expected to
continue as new ways of working, sparked by technological advancements,
demand higher-level knowledge, skills, and abilities.
For a full and equitable recovery, the United States must invest in
the skills of its workers--and those investments must benefit all
Americans. We must close longstanding gaps in skills, credentials, and
career progression associated with gender, race, ethnicity, and income
status.
The United States has an array of postsecondary education, skills
training, and workforce development programs that provide vital
education and employment services for America's workers. These programs
and institutions have worked hard to adapt throughout the pandemic--
moving from in-person to virtual service delivery and adjusting to meet
the needs of a changing labor market. But they are not adequately
funded, nor are they agile enough to fully meet the skill needs of the
U.S. workforce, especially in today's turbulent economy.
To meet the needs of workers, employers, and the economy, Congress
must do the following:
Significantly increase investments in our collective
workforce development efforts, especially in skills development
programs, to meet the needs of America's workers and employers
and the U.S. economy.
Make needed changes in America's workforce
development ecosystem to:
Y Transform services for jobseekers and workers by
modernizing and expanding career navigation and skills
training systems, as well as the workforce system
infrastructure
Y Strengthen employer engagement to ensure system
relevance and increase the value that employers place
on skills attainment and quality jobs
Y Improve the effectiveness of systems serving workers
in transition, especially those with barriers to
employment--including Black, Latino, and Indigenous
people and opportunity youth--and ensure equity in the
provision and outcomes of services
______
The Chair. Thank you very much.
Ms. Thomas, we will turn to you.
STATEMENT OF DENIECE THOMAS, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF WORKFORCE
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT, TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT, NASHVILLE, TN
Ms. Thomas. Good morning. Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking
Member Burr, and Members of the Committee for inviting me to
speak today. My name is Deniece Thomas, and I serve as Deputy
Commissioner of Workforce and Learning for the Tennessee
Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Tennessee, like most states across the Country, has
experienced disruption in the workforce as a result of the
pandemic. Whereas our most recent unemployment rate of 5
percent looks promising, we recognize there are challenges that
exist outside of the official numbers.
Also, unlike the Great Recession when jobs were more scarce
in our state, we have a significant amount of jobs available to
Tennesseans. Currently, over 250,000 jobs remain unfilled in
our jobs data base. However, as vaccination rates increase and
hopefully overall conditions improve, we are seeing a real push
to reengage sidelined workers.
In order to breach the divide between those needing and
wanting quality jobs and employers who desire skilled workers,
we must collaborate with other workforce agencies and partners
to provide comprehensive services, both in the American Job
Centers and Community Access Points across the state, to
include mobile units.
We officially launched a Tennessee Virtual American Job
Center in December of last year in order to maintain
connectivity to our citizens, even when our physical doors
could not be open due to the pandemic. This service model is
key in advancing opportunities for all.
We must continue to work with human services agencies to
create, collect, and share common intake information in order
to best identify and coordinate eligibility for appropriate
programs and services that meet the overall needs of the
individual and their family.
The availability of these services outside the traditional
walls of the American one-stop system has helped to expand
access for many Tennesseans, as have many pandemic era programs
that rely on a more remote service delivery.
Given the workforce vulnerability of minority workers
across certain industry sectors, individualized and equitable
access must continue to be broadened to ensure workers most at
risk for job loss or disruption can participate in training
programs that offer the best path to connect to high-demand and
high-wage employment opportunities. This includes an expansion
of worker supports, such as access to high-quality childcare,
transportation, and broadband.
This work will be strengthened by partners at the Federal
level by further aligning policies, eligibility and benefit
structures, regulation, state plan requirements, and
performance metrics across systems. Employee-integrated
approaches will bolster and support evidence-based outcomes for
several workforce, human services, and education programs.
We continue to forge ahead with ways to provide access to
quality workforce and education training to those incarcerated.
In partnership with our Tennessee Board of Regents and
Department of Corrections, we are offering a unique virtual
technology platform that offers instruction, career
exploration, and skills assessment prior to release.
Whereas Tennessee has had some success with education
partners, namely adult education, career and technical
education, and those at the post-secondary level, we recommend
policymakers ensure all future investments in infrastructure
around education, public health, and transportation are
inclusive of the public workforce system to ensure holistic and
overall outcomes for those we serve.
One such example is our soon-to-be-released Summer Work
Experience. This is a project modeled for in-school and out-of-
school youth that will support work-based education, as well as
the expansion of pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship
opportunities. Our Apprenticeship Tennessee initiative has
experienced nearly 30 percent growth in the number of
registered apprenticeships over the last year, despite the
pandemic.
Another highlight is our Reconnect the Workforce project
that was launched last year. This is a cooperative effort
between the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and the
Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development to
design a data-sharing initiative in order to facilitate access
to post-secondary education for unemployment claimants and
adult education students in targeted sectors.
By leveraging the tuition-free Tennessee Reconnect program
for adult learners, our organizations could utilize resources
to create a suite of services to address barriers to post-
secondary credential attainment. During initial rollout of the
program, we reached over 500,000 individuals.
These examples of state-level coordination can lead to
sustainable and scalable models throughout our entire system,
and it is a spirit we all need as we emerge from the pandemic.
However, public workforce here in Tennessee and at large will
need sustainable and flexible funding options to continue to
support both emergent and incumbent workers. Investments must
be consistent over time to allow for maneuverability to address
needs as they arise as opposed to reactive and restricted
funding that hinders states' ability to plan and execute as
needed.
The public workforce system will continue to play a vital
role in economic and workforce recovery by providing access to
training opportunities to individuals desiring reskilling or
upskilling opportunities through traditional and work-based
education. When positioned well, programs and services within
the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act can provide
foundational economic stability and drive the labor market
incomes for all.
Thank you for the opportunity to share.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Thomas follows:]
prepared statement of deniece thomas
Good Morning. Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and
Members of the Committee, for inviting me to speak today.
Overview
Tennessee, like most states across the country, has experienced
disruption in the workforce as a result of the pandemic. Whereas our
most recent unemployment rate of 5 percent looks promising, we
recognize there are workforce challenges that exist outside of the
official numbers.
Also, unlike during the Great Recession when jobs were more scarce
in our state, we have a significant amount of jobs available to
Tennesseans. Currently, we have over 250K available positions posted in
our jobs data base. The state experienced its most substantial job
growth in the trade/transportation/utilities sector.
The leisure/hospitality sector experienced the biggest loss of jobs
over the last year. However, as vaccination rates increase and overall
conditions improve, we are seeing a real push to reengage sidelined
workers.
Equity and Access
In order to bridge the divide between those needing and wanting
quality jobs and employers who desire skilled workers, we collaborate
with other workforce agencies and partners to provide comprehensive
services, both in American Job Centers and community access points
across the state, including mobile units. We officially launched the
Tennessee Virtual American Job Center in December of last year in order
to maintain connectivity to our citizens even when our physical doors
could not be opened due to the pandemic. This service model is key in
advancing opportunities for all. We also coordinate with our Human
Services agency to create, collect and share common intake information
in order to best identify and coordinate eligibility for appropriate
programs and services that meet the overall needs of the individual and
their family. The availability of these services outside the
traditional walls of the American One Stop System has helped to expand
access for many Tennesseans, as have pandemic era programs that rely
more on remote service delivery.
Given the workforce vulnerability of minority workers across
certain industry sectors, individualized and equitable access must
continue to be broadened to ensure workers most at risk for job loss or
disruption can participate in training programs that offer the best
path to connect to high demand and high wage employment opportunities.
This includes an expansion of worker supports such as access to high-
quality childcare, transportation, and broadband. This work will be
strengthened by our partners at the Federal level further aligning
policies, eligibility and benefit structures, regulations, state plan
requirements and performance metrics across systems. Employing
integrated approaches will bolster and support evidence-based outcomes
for several workforce, human services, and education programs. We
continue to forge ahead with ways to provide access to quality
workforce education and training to those incarcerated. In partnership
with the Tennessee Board of Regents and Department of Corrections we
are offering a unique virtual technology platform that provides
instruction, career exploration and skill assessments prior to release.
Integration and Service Modeling
Whereas Tennessee has successful coordination with several
education partners such as Adult Education, Career and Technical
Education, and technical and community colleges at the post-secondary
level, we recommend policymakers ensure all future investments in
infrastructure around education, public health, and transportation are
inclusive of the public workforce system to ensure holistic and overall
outcomes for those we serve. One such example of that coordination in
our state is the soon-to be summer work experience project for in-
school and out-of-school youth that will support work-based education
as well as the expansion of pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship
opportunities. Our ApprenticeshipTN initiative has experienced nearly
30 percent growth in the number of registered apprentices over the last
year despite the pandemic.
Another highlight is our Reconnect the Workforce project that was
launched early. This was a cooperative effort between the Tennessee
Higher Education Commission and the Tennessee Department of Labor and
Workforce Development to design a data sharing initiative in order to
facilitate access to post-secondary education for unemployment
claimants and adult education students in targeted sectors. By
leveraging the tuition free TN Reconnect program for adult learners,
our organizations could utilize resources to create a suite of services
to address barriers to post-secondary credential attainment. During
initial rollout of the program we reached over 500k individuals.
These examples of state-level coordination can lead to sustainable
and scalable models throughout our entire system and it is the spirit
we all need coming out of this recession. However, the public workforce
here in Tennessee and at large will need sustainable and flexible
funding options to continue to support both emergent and incumbent
workers. Investments must be consistent over time to allow for
maneuverability to address needs as they arise as opposed to reactive
and restrictive funding that hinders states' ability to plan and
execute as needed.
Conclusion
The public workforce system at large will continue to play a vital
role in economic and workforce recovery by providing access to training
opportunities to individuals desiring reskilling or upskilling
opportunities through both traditional and work-based education. When
positioned well, programs and services within the Workforce Innovation
and Opportunity Act can provide foundational economic stability and
drive good labor market outcomes for all.
______
[summary statement of deniece thomas]
Tennessee, like most states, has experienced workforce challenges
as a result of the COVID 19 Pandemic. In order to strengthen workforce
participation and recovery we must rely on partnerships not only within
the public workforce system but also the private sector community.
Although challenged, there remains optimism that the workforce
community can rally together with innovative approaches and renewed
vigor to support workers most impacted by the pandemic. To experience
both short-and long-term success access must be expanded to ensure
equity in workforce funded programs and services. Funding for these
programs must be sustainable and flexible to allow states the ability
to plan and execute at the onset of need rather than rely on
competitive funding where there is oftentimes a lag. Agility and
expediency of the public workforce system response is vital to help
mitigate the effects of potential long-term unemployment.
The expansion of work-based training and education is also
necessary to facilitate a robust workforce pipeline of existing and
emerging workers. Programs such as apprenticeships, on the job training
and incumbent worker training remain vitally important and will be
needed as we continue to move more of our citizens back to work.
Last, the gears of innovation and creativity must continue to turn
to improve career pathway progression for youth and adults. The
buildout of these programs will yield greater versatility and viability
for our state's workforce.
______
The Chair. Thank you.
Dr. Ralls.
STATEMENT OF DR. SCOTT RALLS, PRESIDENT, WAKE TECHNICAL
COMMUNITY COLLEGE, RALEIGH, NC
Dr. Ralls. Good morning, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr,
and Members of the Committee. I am very honored to be with you
today. Our college, Wake Technical Community College, takes
particular pride in the community part of our name, and this
challenging past year has sharpened even more our community
emphasis.
A year ago this month, we quickly moved every course and
service we provide online. And, since that time, we have been
safely nudging back to normalcy. A majority of our students
work. You could say colleges like ours are the colleges of
essential workers, and our role in that regard has been clear,
beginning with the physical reopening of our Public Safety and
Health Sciences campuses last June. Since that time, 136
nursing graduates have moved directly to the healthcare
frontlines, and our pharmacy tech students have been trained
for vaccine delivery.
Like all community colleges, our students are more than
likely to come from working and lower-income families, and also
to be classified as non-traditional. This year has been
particularly non-traditional for them--the working student, who
is also the essential clerk in the grocery checkout line; the
student parent, who is also serving as a teacher at home.
To address these greater challenges, we have amplified our
communications, accelerated and expanded our student supports,
and tried to serve where we can as a lifeline for our
community.
In the fall, we waived all our student fees to give our
students a financial break. And, as of this week, we will have
distributed emergency financial aid to over 12,000 students in
an average award amount of $700, provided $125 grocery gift
cards to over 4,300 students, and distributed over 1,200 free
laptops.
At the outset of the pandemic, we scooped up all our
existing PPE, donating 74,000 gloves, 3,000 masks, our only
ventilator, and other supplies to our hospitals.
We raised $194,000 in private funds for grants to local
small businesses started through our Launch Entrepreneurship
programs.
Today, one of our campuses serves as a site where 1,800
people per week are receiving vaccinations.
We are providing free job training to individuals in our
community economically impacted by COVID in 21 in-demand job
areas.
As we have reached the one-year COVID anniversary, we are
extremely grateful for the Federal, the state, the county
resources, the private donations that enabled us to earn our
stripes this year as our community's college.
While we are keeping our eye on the ball with respect to
safety, we are excited to be reaching this transition as I
believe the road to economic recovery and workforce opportunity
is running right through the middle of America's community
colleges.
In no way is this a new role for our college. And in the
year leading up to the pandemic, we were already framing our
role as our region's largest ladder college and furthering the
practice of what we will sometimes refer to as ladder
economics. Here is what we briefly mean by that.
The region we serve, the Research Triangle, is a high-tech
hub that is blessed by economic opportunity and significant
population growth and job growth, and our region's strong
universities serve as a talent magnet for individuals from
around our state, our Country, and the world.
However, we have not been as strong a talent ladder.
Economic analyses indicate that despite the richness of the
opportunities, we lag in economic mobility, meaning if you grow
up poor in our region, the chances of remaining poor as an
adult are greater, higher, than in some other metropolitan
areas. That significant challenge has only been exacerbated
this year by the pandemic, and at Wake Tech, we are taking that
on as a unique mission to change that.
One way we attempt to do that is by not forcing upon our
students a choice between skills and degrees. While training
too often leads to the necessary skills that are required to
get a job, too often they do not connect to the degree pathways
that are necessary for career promotion--like a ladder with
only the bottom rungs. And many higher education degree
pathways are like a ladder with only the top rungs--unreachable
for many people who need to work so they can continue higher
education to prepare for a lifelong career.
At Wake Tech, we are sharpening our focus on the
development and alignment of each rung--the ladders leading to
career opportunity, as well as the vital partnerships, employer
partnerships, educational partnerships, workforce system
partnerships that form the vital planks that connect the rungs
of the ladder together. In my written testimony, I gave
examples of that in terms of our information and biotechnology
pathways.
Some of the rungs of the ladder there are important.
Frequent and meaningful employer engagement; data-infused
career development; training opportunities providing both a
foothold to a job with industry certifications, recognized
industry certifications, and footholds to degrees with prior
learning credit; coordinated high school pathways; CTE; dual
enrollment; early colleges; stackable community college
degrees; second-chance recovery efforts; strategic university
partnerships; plus-up training for degree holders for lifetime
learning; and well-developed apprenticeship and work-based
learning opportunities.
There are several opportunities for the Federal Government
to further development of meaningful career ladders at
America's community colleges, which I believe are the backbone
of workforce development and at the heart of creating career
ladders:
Extending Federal financial aid eligibility to students and
workers enrolled in short-term programs; authorizing a
community college-led training program that provides meaningful
funding for the development and initiation of career ladders in
high-demand job areas; establishing education and training
innovation funds through the Departments of Labor and
Education; and strengthening the Federal apprenticeship
policies.
Thank you again for this opportunity to participate in
today's hearing, and I look forward to the discussion generated
by your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ralls follows:]
prepared statement of dr. scott ralls
Good morning Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr and Members of the
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I am honored to be
with you today. My name is Scott Ralls and I am President of Wake
Technical Community College. Serving approximately 70,000 individuals
per year with six campuses and three training sites in the Greater
Raleigh metropolitan region, our college is not only the largest
community college in our state but also one of the largest higher
education institutions in North Carolina.
As a community college, we take particular pride in the
``community'' part of our name, and this challenging past year has
sharpened even more our community emphasis. We have been privileged and
honored to help provide a bridge to recovery for the students and
community we serve.
A year ago this month, we quickly moved every course and service we
provide online, and since that time we have been safely nudging back to
normalcy. A majority of our students work--you could say that colleges
like ours are the colleges of ``essential workers''--and our role in
that regard was clear, with the physical reopening of both our Public
Safety and Health Sciences Campuses last June. Since that time, 136
Wake Tech nursing graduates moved to the healthcare frontlines with the
aid of a new ``graduate nurse status'' designation by the North
Carolina Board of Nursing, and our pharmacy tech students and faculty
have received special training for vaccine administration. In August,
we began bringing back our skilled trades and technical programs into
socially distanced, in-person courses in our shops and labs, and we
hustled to ensure that all our faculty had a completed a unique on-line
instruction certification program called EPIC that we created a few
years ago, not knowing how vital it would be to us this year.
Like all community colleges, our students are more likely to come
from working and lower income families, and also to be classified as
non-traditional. This year was a particularly non-traditional year for
them--the working student who also is the essential clerk in the
grocery checkout line, the student parent who is also serving as a
teacher at home. To address their greater challenges, we have attempted
to amplify all of our communications, accelerate and expand our student
supports, and serve where we can as a lifeline for our community under
a college mantra we have called ``Reach and Rally.''
At the onset of the pandemic, we reached out with an outbound
calling campaign to check in on each of our students and revamped
delivery of our vital tutoring services. In the Fall, we waived all of
our student fees to give our students a financial break, and as of this
week, we will have distributed emergency financial aid to over 12,000
students at an average award amount of $700, provided $125 grocery gift
cards to over 4,300 students, and distributed over 1,200 free student
laptops.
While reaching out to our students, we rallied around our community
as well. At the onset of the pandemic, we collected all of our existing
PPE, donating 74,000 gloves, 3,000 masks, hundreds of bottles of
sanitizer and our only ventilator to our local hospitals. We also
raised $192,000 in private funds to be distributed as ``rally grants''
to 85 local small businesses that had started in recent years with the
assistance of our Wake Tech small business programs. Today, one of our
campus gyms is a site where 1,800 people a week are receiving COVID
vaccinations.
As we have reached the one-year COVID-19 anniversary, we are
extremely grateful for the Federal, state and county resources, as well
as the private donations during a record setting fundraising year, that
enabled us to earn our stripes this year as our community's college.
While we are keeping our eye on the ball with respect to all safety
protocols, we are excited to be reaching a transition point where our
support becomes focused on economic and workforce recovery.
In no way is this a new role for our college. Workforce development
that enables broadly shared economic prosperity has always been at the
heart of our mission, and in the year leading up to the pandemic, we
were already framing our role as our region's largest ``ladder
college'' and furthering the practice of what we sometimes refer to as
``ladder economics.'' Here's briefly what we mean by that and what it
looks like.
First a glimpse into the region we serve, the Research Triangle.
Our region is a high-tech hub, blessed by economic opportunity,
population growth, and trailing only Austin, Texas in STEM job growth
over the past decade. Our region can be found at the top of most
positive economic indicators, and higher education has been at the core
of our region's economic development, with strong universities serving
as a talent magnet for individuals from around the country.
However, we have not been as strong a talent ladder. Economic
analyses indicate that despite the richness of opportunities, we lag as
an economic ladder, meaning if you grow up poor as a child in our
region, the chances of remaining poor as an adult are higher than in
many other metropolitan areas. We know that significant challenge has
only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Defining ourselves as our
region's largest ladder college, Wake Tech has taken it on as our
unique mission to change that, and thus a focus on ``ladder
economics.''
Here's what we mean. Prior to the pandemic, you could hear the
debate in many places about skills vs. degrees. I've personally had
several corporate executives tell me they don't care about degrees
anymore, only skills, and then later learn that the memo never reached
the H.R. department where degrees were very much a criteria for
potential promotions. Why should an individual have to choose? Training
often leads to the necessary skills required to land a job, but too
often does not connect to the degree pathways necessary for career
promotion--like a ladder with only the bottom rungs. On the flip side,
many higher education degree pathways are like a ladder with only the
top rungs, unreachable to many people who need to work so they can
continue higher education to prepare for a career.
Skills vs. degrees, the workforce system vs. the education system,
short-term vs. long-term--our workforce development deliberations have
too often been focused around the debates of ``or,'' while so many
people need us to be focused around ``and.'' Our conversations and
plans should be more about connective ladders to opportunity, less
about disconnected siloed programs, and that's where ``ladder
economics'' comes in.
Ladder economics means fostering a focus on each important rung of
the career ladder and the partnerships that create the vital
connectivity. In my opinion, the important rungs of ladder economics
include:
frequent and meaningful employer engagement,
data-infused career development,
training opportunities providing both a foothold to a
job with recognized industry certifications and foothold to
degrees with prior learning credit,
coordinated high school pathways through CTE and dual
enrollment,
well-developed apprenticeship and work-based learning
opportunities,
stackable community college degrees,
second chance recovery efforts,
strategic university articulations, and
plus-up training for degree holders that fosters
meaningful career-based, lifetime learning.
These ladder rungs are not unique to most community college
programs, and at Wake Tech, we are sharpening our focus on each rung
and the partnerships--employer partnerships, educational partnerships,
workforce system partnerships--that form the vital planks that connect
the rungs of the ladder together.
Three of the vital rungs fall within the realm of outreach and
information. Perhaps the most vital outreach is active employer
engagement which we continuously cultivate so as to hit employer skills
targets and give our students a hiring advantage. Like most community
colleges, each of our applied degree programs have active employer
advisory committees and it is a rare day when I am not personally
engaged with at least one local employer regarding workforce
development.
Data science is opening the development of two new ladder rungs
related to career development and stop-out recovery. With the data
science company, Burning Glass, we have initiated career mapping for
each of our degree pathways which will provide up-to-date regional wage
and employment data for students and potential students regarding what
is possible with each credential step. We also innovated our own data
science tool, Finish First, which allows us to identify at the course
level, the degree award proximity of all our recent stop-outs, which we
also hope to connect back to the career maps. By coordinating that
information this past spring with a targeted student outreach effort
with the company Inside Track, we were able to foster a stop-out
recovery effort that was 50 percent more effective than our normal
outreach and had a 343 percent return on investment. The model is now
being piloted statewide in North Carolina with the assistance of the
North Carolina Community College System, the UNC System, Lumina
Foundation and the John M. Belk Endowment.
Much of the work of what we call ladder economics revolves around
programmatic alignment--alignment of high school dual enrollment
opportunities, short-term training and prior learning credit, applied
degrees, and strategic university transfer options--and the notion of
credential ``stackability.'' In North Carolina we have an advantage, as
our North Carolina Community College System revamped the statewide
applied degree structure almost a decade ago with a major goal to
foster opportunity through credential stackability.
Through our laddering goals at Wake Tech, we are attempting to take
the concepts of program alignment and stackability to new levels. Here
are a couple of examples in job areas that have continued to boom in
growth in our region even during the height of the pandemic: Biotech
and IT.
The pandemic has spurred the exponential growth of biotech jobs in
our region with major jobs and investment announcements becoming a
common occurrence as exemplified by the recent company announcements
from Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, Biogen, and Eli Lilly to name
just a few. A gateway to the entry jobs for many of those companies is
our short-term, non-degree BioWork program, a statewide community
college program developed years ago in close partnership with our
biotech companies. BioWork is now offered as one of 21 programs
provided free of charge at our college to individuals facing employment
impacts of COVID, thanks to Federal GEER funding made available by the
CARES Act. Students in that program get a strong foothold to a first
job in biotech, and also a foothold through prior learning credit into
our two-year Biopharmaceutical Technology degree. For high school
students at our Vernon Malone College and Career Academy, one of our
three Early College partnerships we share with Wake County Public
Schools, students there have an accelerated dual enrollment jump start,
with several finishing our biopharmaceutical technology degree and
other programs at the same time they graduate from high school.
Students who complete our biopharmaceutical technology degree can
seamlessly transfer that degree and the credits into the Bachelor of
Science in Industrial Technology degree at East Carolina University,
and the UNC System recently approved the onsite delivery of that
program by ECU on our Wake Tech campuses. Finally, once the entry level
skills and degrees are attained, further skills-focused lifetime
learning is needed, what we sometimes call ``plus-up training.'' That
is where our BioNetwork Capstone Center comes in, a unique training
center Wake Tech operates for the North Carolina Community College
System. Located within the Biomanufacturing Training and Education
Center on the Centennial Campus of our close partner, NC State
University, it offers a ``biotech teaching factory'' where we offer
``plus-up'' training in areas like clean room operations, Good
Manufacturing Practices, validation and instrumentation.
Let me switch to another high demand opportunity in our region,
information technology, where job openings have grown 20 percent year
over year since January 2020. We now call our short-term IT offerings,
``Power Packs,'' because like BioWork, they provide the ultimate in
foothold short-term training programs--accelerated training like a boot
camp that results in in-demand industry certifications, but also the
power of prior learning credit for our multiple information technology
degrees. And like BioWork, our PowerPack IT programs are currently
offered to many individuals free of charge thanks to the Federal GEER
funding.
Here's a practical example of the power of the ladder model in IT--
a student at Wake Tech can take a non-degree, accelerated short-term
program in software development using Python. That short-term program
opens the door to immediate potential employment opportunities in our
region, as well as prior learning credit to our computer programming,
cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure degrees. Those degrees are
stackable, leading to additional industry recognized credentials, such
as the IBM Blockchain Badge which was the first IBM badge offered
outside of the IBM system. We have also fostered strategic university
articulations for each of our IT degrees and over the past two years
established seamless 2+2 pathways in computer programming and
cybersecurity degrees with North Carolina A&T, UNC Charlotte, ECU, NC
Central and Northeastern University out of Boston, where our students
have been able to participate in virtual coop experiences this year.
Through our very affordable non-degree programs, funded by our state at
the same level as our degree programs, and our stackable certificate
models, students with degrees have a valuable resource for IT plus-up
training. A great example is our Business Analytics Certificate which
we have specially aligned to employer defined knowledge skills and
abilities through our participation in the Business Roundtable
Workforce Partnership Initiative (WPI). Recently, half of our students
enrolled in that certificate program had bachelor's degrees and 15
percent had master's degrees or higher.
Finally, one of the most important rungs we believe in ladder
economics is work-based learning and apprenticeship. Thanks to funding
from Wake County, we are doubling down on these opportunities as our
county is funding a Wake Tech program we call WakeWorks to facilitate
employers in becoming registered, and provide the tuition and other
expense needs of apprentices gaining their related training through
Wake Tech. The recent story of one of our computer programming students
demonstrates the great power of work-based learning as a vital rung in
the economic ladder model. Tiffany Harrell grew up as a foster youth in
Eastern North Carolina and came to Wake Tech for the first time many
years ago when she earned her GED. Lacking additional money for college
at the time, she left school and was married. One day, her husband
suddenly died of a heart attack leaving Tiffany a widow with five kids
and no job. However, with natural computing instincts and a ton of
desire, Tiffany made her way back to Wake Tech and into our computer
programming degree program. Not long afterwards came an opportunity
through our work-based learning partnership with Lenovo, where she
thrived and was eventually awarded a full-time job. Today, Tiffany
works as a Team Lead with the North American ThinkAgile Premier Support
Team at Lenovo. Should she want to further ladder into an IT bachelor's
degree with one of our strategic university partners, while continuing
to work, those further opportunities now also await her, and I have no
doubt she will be successful.
To conclude, for non-traditional students like Tiffany, traditional
college degree pathways are too often inaccessible while isolated
skills training programs and boot camps are insufficient. America's
community colleges are the at the heart of the potential for ladder
economics because they are the natural places where employer and
educational partnerships abound, career ladders are constructed, and
students like Tiffany Harrell thrive.
There are several opportunities for Congress and the Federal
Government to further the development of meaningful career ladders at
America's community colleges by among other things:
Extending Federal Financial Aid eligibility to
students and workers enrolled in short-term programs,
particularly when those programs are third-party assessed, lead
to meaningful industry certifications, and articulate into
academic degree credit;
Authorizing a community college-led job training
program that provides meaningful funding for the development
and initiation of career ladders in high demand job areas where
the instructional expenses are also more costly;
Establishing education and training innovation funds
at the Departments of Labor and Education, and incentivizing
creative laddering partnerships between the WIOA system, high
school CTE programs, and community colleges; and
Strengthening Federal Apprenticeship policies that
foster alignment with educational ladders including competency-
based programs.
Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in today's
hearing and I look forward to the discussion generated by your
questions.
______
[summary statement of dr. scott ralls]
Wake Tech, North Carolina's largest community college, takes great
pride in the ``community'' part of its name. This year the college
served as a bridge to recovery for its students and its community by
accelerating and expanding its student and community supports. At the
onset of the pandemic, the college collected all of its existing PPE,
donating 74,000 gloves, 3,000 masks, hundreds of bottles of sanitizer
and the college's only ventilator to local hospitals. It has
distributed emergency financial aid to over 12,000 students at an
average award amount of $700, provided $125 grocery gift cards to over
4,300 students, and distributed over 1,200 free student laptops. It
also raised $192,000 in private funds to be distributed as ``rally
grants'' to 85 local small businesses and is providing free short-term
training leading to in-demand certifications and licensures in 21
program areas for individuals facing employment impacts from COVID. The
college is also a vaccination site where 1,800 people a week are
receiving COVID vaccinations.
Now Wake Tech's support is turning to economic and workforce
recovery, framing itself as the region's largest ``ladder college'' and
furthering the practice of what it sometimes refers to as ``ladder
economics.'' The college sees this role as important to its region
which although an economic dynamo, is also an area where economic
mobility is relatively challenging.
From the Wake Tech perspective, ``ladder economics'' means
fostering a focus on each critical rung of the career ladder and the
partnerships that create the vital connectivity. Important rungs of
economic laddering include:
frequent and meaningful employer engagement,
data-infused career development,
training opportunities providing both a foothold to a
job with recognized industry certifications and a foothold to
degrees with prior learning credit,
coordinated high school pathways through CTE and dual
enrollment,
well-developed apprenticeship and work-based learning
opportunities,
stackable community college degrees,
second chance recovery efforts,
strategic university articulations, and
plus-up training for degree holders that fosters
meaningful career-based, lifetime learning.
Detailed examples of these connected workforce development ladder
rungs at Wake Tech are presented as related to programs in
biotechnology and information technology. Policy can further the
development of meaningful career ladders at America's community
colleges by extending Federal Financial Aid eligibility to students and
workers enrolled in short-term programs; authorizing a community
college-led job training program; establishing education and training
innovation funds at the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education; and,
strengthening Federal Apprenticeship policies.
______
The Chair. Thank you very much.
We will now turn to Mr. Mendoza.
STATEMENT OF ALEJANDRO MENDOZA, HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR,
OPTIMAX SYSTEMS INC., ONTARIO, NY
Mr. Mendoza. Good morning, Chair Murray, Ranking Member
Burr, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for
convening today's hearing. My name is Alejandro Mendoza, and it
is an honor for me to be here today to testify and to share my
experience as a private sector employee.
Optimax Systems is a precision optics manufacturer located
in Upstate Western New York. We were founded in 1991 and have
grown to become America's largest precision optics
manufacturer. We manufacture high-end lenses to customer-
supplied specifications for research and industry. So,
organizations such as NASA use our lenses for high-quality
imaging systems that can be found on the Mars Rovers and the
International Space Station.
We have approximately 400 employees, including hundreds of
skilled technicians, each of whom are artisans that have had to
learn the skills required to produce a precision lens from
start to finish. Fundamentally, our technicians need to have
basic math and computer skills to manufacture the lenses by
using computer-controlled machinery and metrology instruments,
and they must be able to work within teams. Once we bring on a
technician, they begin our formal on-the-job learning process
that includes both hands-on and classroom training.
In the end, our goal is to create a profitable company that
provides good jobs and career opportunities for our employees
and prosperity for our region, and we do this by investing in
emerging technology, by investing in workers to ensure that
they have the needed skills, and by sharing our wealth with our
employees.
However, one of the greatest challenges is that we struggle
to find workers necessary to grow the business and to fulfill
our customer orders, and we know we are not alone. In New York,
49 percent of jobs require skills training beyond high school,
but not a four-year degree. But, too few of New York's workers,
just 37 percent, have had access to the skills training
necessary to fill these in-demand careers, and the current
crisis has only exacerbated this challenge.
Over the past year at Optimax, our business demand has
continued to grow, but we have only been able to hire 13
employees compared to our needs of 30 to 40, so our workforce
strategies around recruiting, training, and retaining our
workforce has been heavily stressed.
The strategies in which we invest the most amount of time
and energy fit into two key categories: One is collaboration
through industry or sector partnerships, as well as extensive
in-house training and development.
Engagement in industry partnerships within our community to
scale best practices has been vital. With our partners, we have
shared best practices to recruiting and training skilled
workers.
We have worked a direct curriculum development at community
colleges.
We have engaged hundreds of students and re-careering
adults by providing facility tours, internships, and job shadow
opportunities.
We have conducted outreach in the community.
We have sponsored and hosted network events and created
educational tools and information to support the advanced
manufacturing sector.
But, in addition to industry partnerships, we have
incorporated continuous on-the-job and classroom learning for
our existing workers. We prioritize opportunities for employees
to learn on the job through several structured worker training
programs, including a registered apprenticeship program,
tuition-supported upskilling, and customized tutoring for
technical skills development, corporate culture, and leadership
fundamentals.
At Optimax, we provide our workforce with, on average,
about 1,000 hours of training each month. And additionally,
during any given semester, we have between 20 and 25 employees
enrolled in courses at our local community and technical
colleges.
Optimax is committed to investing in our workers and
community, but we also need Congress to be our partner in this.
Congress can do this by ensuring public support for
partnerships that bring together small and midsize companies,
community and technical colleges, and the public workforce
systems.
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act currently
supports these industry or sector partnerships, but provides no
dedicated resources to empower states and local areas to invest
in this strategy. Dedicated resource to support industry
partnerships through WIOA reauthorization, the National
Apprenticeship Act reauthorization, and any response or
recovery to the current crisis allows Optimax to better support
our training programs.
Advanced manufacturing businesses like Optimax need you to
invest aggressively and effectively in the skills that
industries demand, and workers need to be competitive in a
global marketplace, an idea over 80 percent of voters do
support.
To be the most effective to Optimax, these investments
would also support costs of providing incumbent worker training
and of helping our workers enhance their digital skills.
Investing in incumbent worker training like the type Optimax
supports would help us and our workers meet different skill
needs, like the technological changes we saw during COVID.
Finally, better aligning post-secondary policy with
industrial demand and worker need would revolutionize our
capacity to upskill and reskill our workers. If Congress
expanded financial aid to anyone seeking skills training,
students in high-quality, short-term training programs and not
just those seeking traditional college degrees, Optimax could
offer career progression for even more workers than we do
today.
Thank you kindly for your time and dedication to ensuring
the strength of America's workforce.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mendoza follows:]
prepared statement of alejandro mendoza
Madam Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and distinguished Members
of the Committee, thank you for convening today's hearing on ``COVID-19
Recovery: Supporting Workers and Modernizing the Workforce Through
Quality Education, Training, and Employment Opportunities.''
My name is Alejandro Mendoza and I am the Director of Human
Resources of Optimax Systems Inc, \1\ a precision optics manufacturer,
located in Ontario, New York. It is an honor for me to be here today to
testify before the Committee and to share my experience as a private
sector employer, committed to expanding opportunities for workers to
access good jobs at Optimax and in Rochester, NY. I have over 14 years
of day-to-day experience with staffing and workforce development in an
advanced manufacturing environment. In addition to my role at Optimax,
I serve the local community as a member of the Finger Lakes Advanced
Manufacturing Enterprise (FAME), the Finger Lakes Community College
foundation board and the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce H.R.
Executive forum while regionally, I'm a member of the NY state
workforce strategy group--Invest in skills NY1F \2\ coalition and
nationally, I serve as a board member of the National Fund for
Workforce Solutions \3\ and partner with the National Skills Coalition
\4\ and Business Leaders United, \5\ including a member of their
Manufacturing Industry Recovery Panel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://www.optimaxsi.com/.
\2\ https://www.investinskillsny.org/.
\3\ https://nationalfund.org/.
\4\ https://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/.
\5\ https://www.businessleadersunited.org/.
Optimax was founded in 1991 and has grown to become America's
largest precision optics manufacturer. That means we manufacture lenses
to customer-supplied specifications for research and industry. For
example, we have supplied NASA with high-quality imaging lenses
designed for position sensing, mapping landforms and optical analysis
including lenses for the Mars Rovers and the International Space
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Station.
We have approximately 400 employees, including hundreds of skilled
technicians. Each of these technicians is really an artisan, who will
eventually learn all the skills required to produce a precision lens--
each lens is unique, as is the process to create it, from start to
finish. Workers need to have basic math and computer skills--to
manufacture the lenses using computer-controlled machinery and
metrology instruments however, they also must be able to work within
teams. Once we bring on a technician, they'll generally access our
formal on-the-job learning process that requires both on-the-job and
class room training which focuses on both technical and interpersonal
development.
We have a three-pillar strategy for growing our company and
enhancing the skills of our workers--we invest in emerging technology
to meet production needs, we invest in workers to ensure they're well
prepared with the needed skills and we share our wealth with our
employees. Our goal is to create a profitable company that provides
good jobs and career opportunities for our employees and prosperity for
our region.
Across our workforce, employees have access to tuition assistance,
401(k) retirement savings, company matched HSA, medical/dental
insurance, significant personal time-off and short and long-term
disability insurance. We also share, monthly, $0.25 of each profit
dollar with employees which over the last year averaged out to $7000
annually per employee. Since the COVID-19 crisis, we have enhanced our
communication efforts to ensure we stay connected with both onsite and
remote employees. This has included video messaging, online discussion
platforms, a comprehensive wellness effort to address Emotional,
Financial, Physical and Social well-being and multiple employee
taskforces that included custom CDC compliant facemask sewing for each
employee and rapid response disinfection teams across all shifts of our
operations.
On average, Our Technicians earn a base pay of $21.00/hr and
receive an additional pay increase of 10 percent when they work B-shift
and 15 percent when they work the C-shift (Overnights). Optimax's
operates on a 24/7 basis.
Optimax Commitment to Workforce Development
Even with this commitment to investing in employees, we struggle to
find workers necessary to run the business and to fulfill customer
orders, and we know we're not alone. According to analysis from 2019,
in New York, a plurality of jobs (49 percent) require skills training
beyond a high school, but not a four-year degree. But too few of New
York's workers--just 37 percent--have had access to the skills training
necessary to fill these in-demand careers \6\ And the current crisis
has only exacerbated this challenge.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ https://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/
2020/12/NY-Skills-Mismatch-Fact-Sheet-2020.pdf.
Over the past year, our business demand has continued to grow, but
we have only been able to hire 13 employees, compared to our need of
30-40. Some of the challenges we are facing are because workers lack
access to developing necessary skills and some are challenges outside
of skillsets. Just this week, one of our technicians came to me
frustrated that he did not see a path forward in his role due to low
computer literacy. Last month, we tried to hire two candidates from
downtown Rochester, about a thirty-minute drive away, and neither of
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
them had a way to get out to our plant due to the lack of a bus route.
At Optimax, our mission is focused on enabling customer success and
employee prosperity. Part of how we achieve both of these--and address
the challenges I described above--is by engaging in workforce
strategies to recruit, train and retain our workers.
The two strategies in which we invest the most time and energy fit
into two key categories: collaboration with other companies, community
and technical colleges, the public workforce system and K-12 system
through industry or sector partnerships and extensive in-house and
classroom training for incumbent workers.
Engagement in Industry Partnerships--working with partners to scale
best practices across our community
Optimax President, Mike Mandina, founded the Finger Lakes Advanced
Manufacturing Enterprise, \7\ or FAME, a partnership of 54 business,
community and technical college and workforce partners. FAME has three
key priorities: to collaborate with local colleges and workforce
development programs, to build a regional pipeline of qualified
advanced manufacturing technicians, and to create awareness of
employment opportunities among people in the community.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ https://www.nyfame.org/.
FAME--and our participation in it--has been critical to our success
as a company and our success as a community. With our partners, we have
shared best practices to recruiting and training skilled workers,
worked to direct curriculum development at community colleges, engaged
students in facility tours and established internship and job shadow
opportunities. We have conducted outreach in the community, sponsored
and hosted network events and created educational tools and information
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
to support the advanced manufacturing sector.
We also have leveraged relationships with FAME partners to grow a
high school recruiting strategy that provides career exploration to
interested students. We make presentations at area high schools and
offer a path to an extensive job shadow, and potential paid internship.
This began with three schools, yielding six interns, and grew to
presentations in 21 schools prior to the pandemic. In 2019, we hosted
20 students for three-day job shadows, and had 13 paid interns, several
of whom are now full-time employees. In 2018 and 2019 we also began to
include other like-minded employers in our school presentations, and
they have offered similar programs at their companies. To deal with the
pandemic, we created a virtual tour presentation and have been sharing
with a wider range of school districts to continue our momentum and
efforts. We are beginning to have job shadows again and hope to offer
10 or 12 internships this summer.
Even with Mike's dedication and the dedication of other business
leaders in the area, we could not have started or sustained FAME
without public investment. No one company can do it alone. FAME was
founded with funding from the state's Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act dollars and has been sustained through both
contributions from member businesses and continued public investment by
several other Federal and state grant opportunities.
Fostering upskilling through continuous on-the-job and classroom
learning for existing workers
To support a worker's healthy career, we prioritize opportunities
for workers to learn on the job through several, structured, incumbent
worker training programs including a registered apprenticeship program,
tuition supported upskilling, internal training programs and customized
tutoring for technical skills development, corporate culture and
leadership fundamentals.
Our registered Precision Optics Manufacturing apprenticeship
program is designed to help our existing technicians meet the demands
of our customers as well as advance into more senior positions. Once
accepted into the program, apprentices spend three years rotating
through all departments at Optimax, with a focus on the full
manufacturing process, as well as materials selection, sales and
quality. Each apprentice goes through a series of rotations while
taking a minimum of two formal education courses a year at our local
community college, Monroe Community College.
In addition to the apprenticeship program, Optimax provides our
workforce with, on average, 1,000 hours of training each month. Workers
are also eligible for tuition reimbursement for courses at our local
community and technical colleges. During any semester, we generally
have 15-20 employees enrolled in courses in our region.
One of our apprentices, Genny Kingsley, joined Optimax in 2019,
after trying a variety of jobs after high school. She worked in food
service, retail, and then loaded packages for a railroad. From word of
mouth, she heard about Optimax and started on B-shift, polishing and
manufacturing lenses. In the past year, she enrolled in our
apprenticeship program and has evolved technically and financially as
an outcome. She has said in the past that one of the best things about
her career at Optimax is that you don't need a degree to get started as
you can access all the skills in on-the-job learning. And we agree--
ensuring workers like Genny have access to on-the-job learning, like
apprenticeship, is one of our key retention strategies.
How Congress can Support Companies Like Optimax
Optimax Systems is committed to investing in our workers and our
community and passionate about workforce development. Even with that
commitment, we rely on public policy and public investments to meet our
needs and the needs of our community. There are a few key things
Congress could do to better support the needs of businesses like ours.
First, ensuring public support for partnerships that bring together
small and mid-size companies, like Optimax and our partners at FAME,
and community and technical college and the public workforce system
would make a huge impact in our community. The Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act (WIOA) currently supports these industry or sector
partnerships but provides no dedicated resources to empower states and
local areas to invest in this strategy. For Optimax, dedicated
resources to support industry partnerships--through WIOA
reauthorization, National Apprenticeship Act reauthorization and any
response or recovery to the current crisis is critical to our ability
to support the infrastructure we already have established.
Next, advanced manufacturing businesses like Optimax need you to
invest aggressively and effectively in the skills that industries
demand and workers need to be competitive in a global marketplace.
According to polling in spring of 2020, \8\ 82 percent of voters wanted
to see public investments in skills training in response to the crisis
and 81 percent wanted to see investments over the long-term. Right now,
the U.S. invests less in workforce and active labor market policies
than every other industrialized nation except for Mexico and we would
need to invest $80 billion more annually just to reach the median of
other industrialized countries. \9\ Companies like Optimax are making
the investment in our workers, and we can best leverage and scale
investments like ours when matched with robust public investment. To be
the most effective to Optimax, these investments would also support
costs of providing incumbent worker training and of helping our workers
develop digital skills.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ https://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/
2020/09/09-2020-NSC-Skills-for-an-Inclusive-Economic-Recovery.pdf.
\9\ https://www.americasworkforce.org/latest-action-list/2019/9/
19/investing-in-americas-workforce-a-national-imperative-for-the-21st-
century.
Optimax supports extensive training for our incumbent workers, and
with public investments in these strategies we could better support
shifts--like those we saw during the Covid pandemic or those required
to address technological changes in our workplace--that means our
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
workers need different skills.
Finally, better aligning postsecondary policy with industry demand
and worker need would revolutionize our capacity to upskill and reskill
our workers. If Congress expanded financial aid to anyone seeking
skills training, students in high-quality, short-term training
programs, not just those seeking traditional college degrees, Optimax
could offer career progression for even more workers than we do today.
Thank you for your time and dedication to ensuring the strength of
America's workforce.
______
[summary statement of alejandro mendoza]
Optimax is America's largest precision optics manufacturer, with
400 employees, including hundreds of skilled technicians. Optimax
manufactures lenses to customer-supplied specifications for research
and industry. For example, supplying NASA with high-quality imaging
lenses. As Director of Human Resources, I have over 14 years of day-to-
day experience with staffing and workforce development.
On average, our technicians earn a base pay of $21.00/hr with
strong benefits. Even with a commitment to investing in employees, we
struggle to find workers necessary to run the business and to fulfill
customer orders. Too few of New York's workers--just 37 percent--have
had access to the skills training necessary to fill these in-demand
careers. And the current crisis has only exacerbated this challenge.
Over the past year, our business demand has continued to grow, but
we have only been able to hire 13 employees, compared to our need of
30-40. The challenges we face are because workers lack access to
developing necessary skills, such as digital literacy skills, and
others lack access to necessary tools to complete on-the-job training,
like transportation.
We employ two strategies to meet these challenges. The first is
through industry or sector partnerships. Finger Lakes Advanced
Manufacturing Enterprise, or FAME, is a partnership of 54 business,
community and technical college, and workforce partners. FAME
collaborates with local colleges and workforce development programs,
builds a regional pipeline of qualified advanced manufacturing
technicians, and creates awareness of employment opportunities among
people in the community. We also have leveraged relationships with FAME
partners to grow a high school recruiting strategy that provides career
exploration to interested students.
Our other strategy is fostering upskilling through continuous on-
the-job and classroom learning for existing workers. To support a
worker's healthy career, we prioritize opportunities for workers to
learn on the job through several, structured, incumbent worker training
programs including a registered apprenticeship program, tuition
supported upskilling, internal training programs and customized
tutoring for technical skills development, corporate culture and
leadership fundamentals.
Congress can support companies like Optimax by:
Providing dedicated resources through WIOA to empower
states and local areas to invest in industry partnerships. For
Optimax, dedicated resources to support industry partnerships--
through WIOA reauthorization, National Apprenticeship Act
reauthorization, and any response or recovery to the current
crisis is critical to our ability to support the infrastructure
we already have established.
Investing aggressively and effectively in the skills
that industries demand and workers need to be competitive in a
global marketplace.
Aligning postsecondary policy with industry demand
and worker need would revolutionize our capacity to upskill and
reskill our workers.
______
The Chair. Thank you very much.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for your excellent
testimony.
I would also like to note that we received a letter from
the National Urban League regarding the topic of today's
hearing, and I ask unanimous consent this letter is entered
into the record.
So ordered.
[The following information can be found on page 56 in
Additional Material]
The Chair. With that, we will now begin a round of five-
minute questions. I ask all of our colleagues to keep track of
your clock and stay within those five minutes.
Again, thank you to all of you for your testimony.
Ms. Flynn, I will start with you. Thank you.
Workers who are paid low wages have felt the worst of this
impact from the pandemic, and we are seeing disproportionately
high levels of unemployment and underemployment among women and
communities of color. Additionally, people with disabilities
have experienced significant rates of job loss associated with
this economic downturn. So, as we build back our economy, we
have to make sure that our most vulnerable populations are part
of the economic recovery and no one is left behind.
I wanted to ask you, how can we ensure that all workers
have a pathway to long-term economic self-sufficiency?
Ms. Flynn. Absolutely, Senator, and I completely agree. It
is low-wage workers, people of color, women, individuals with
disabilities who have been hit the hardest. And I think in
response to that, we need to consider how we would truly put
equity at the center of our recovery efforts and how we really
do that in a proactive manner.
First, I would say an investment in skills training is
critical. So, more investment, I would say, across the board,
including, expansion of Pell for short-term credentials.
I would say it is really enhancing outreach efforts and
making it easier for individuals who have been adversely
affected by the pandemic to access the services that they need.
So, really looking to see how to enhance kind of the digital
transformation of the public workforce system; looking at how
to enhance career navigation so that individuals, as well as
the staff at the American Job Centers, can provide better
information.
Then, I would also say, looking at the reporting
requirements of the statute to ensure that we are collecting
the type of disaggregated data that is necessary to be able to
track the outcomes of these individuals over time.
The Chair. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Ms. Thomas, you mentioned the importance of additional
support for people in training programs, like childcare,
transportation, broadband accessibility. Those are challenges I
hear a lot about in my home State of Washington. And, in the
coming weeks, Congress is going to consider additional ways to
help people who have lost their jobs as a result of this
pandemic, and that may include additional supports for
workforce training programs. And we need to make sure people
are not only able to access these training opportunities, but
are able to complete them, as well.
Can you elaborate for us on why supportive services, like
childcare and career navigation, are important for participants
in workforce training programs?
Ms. Thomas. Yes, and thank you, Senator, for your question.
Absolutely. Oftentimes, with access to skills training or post-
secondary education comes with the consideration for most of
those seeking it on how will my children be taken care of, or
how will I afford some of the additional supports that come
along. So, by expanding worker supports to ensure that there is
no question that there is childcare available to individuals
who are looking to not just begin their matriculation toward a
degree and/or credential, but also completion is vital.
This could be done, particularly under the Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act, by expanding funding to allow
us to really create a suite of services. So, when someone is
interested in going to school or reskilling, we can talk about
how all of these supports come together to really mitigate
barriers to completion.
We found this works very well for those who are looking,
particularly first-generation students or those who have been
out of the education space for some time. If we can address the
challenges before entering, it helps that person in completing.
Additionally, with the expansion of the fiscal investments
into worker support, it allows us to help individuals during
the career exploration and navigation phase to really dream of
opportunities that are not always available to them when they
are considering what is my next path, particularly for those
who have been sidelined during the pandemic and those who are
currently in entry-level positions. So, worker supports are
vital as we continue to have these conversations.
The Chair. I could not agree more. Thank you very much for
that.
Senator Burr, I will turn it to you.
Senator Burr. Scott, what does employer engagement look
like on your campus? And how do you design programs that meet
the specific needs of the employer?
Dr. Ralls. Well, it means many things, but it means that
every one of our applied workforce degrees has a very active
advisory committee made up of the employers of our community,
telling us what the skills should be.
It means for me, personally, I rarely have a day when I am
not engaging with at least one employer or more about career
ladders.
For all of us, it is a full-engagement sport in terms of
employer engagement, primarily because we want for our students
to have those job opportunities that exist in our community.
It also means for us working very closely with our
employers to find those ladders as I was talking about,
starting from skills training, how those build into our degree
programs, how our degree programs stack, and where we partner,
such as our university partners. So, it is all the way around,
and it is all of us involved.
Senator Burr. How much counsel of a future student of Wake
Community College goes into trying to direct them on a path
that you have got employer pools that are anxious to hire?
Dr. Ralls. Yes. Frankly, not enough. That is why we are
working on it right now, and we have to look at new models. For
instance, as I mentioned, infusing data into our career
development. So, students are very--are becoming more and more.
They do not need to always sit in front of a counselor, but
they need direction in terms of where some of that information
is, what some of the job opportunities are, how many postings,
what the wage levels are, and what are the steps getting to
from one place to the next. And that is what we are working,
striving at Wake Tech, to accomplish.
Senator Burr. I want to ask you a little tougher question.
You can dance around it if you want to.
Should the faculty at today's community colleges be
mandated to be vaccinated?
Dr. Ralls. Well, we do not believe in mandates, but we
certainly encourage everyone to. I do not think we are going to
get to normalcy unless we are all vaccinated, so I would like
to think we would not have to mandate.
But, if we had to mandate, I would, because I think we are,
at community colleges, the ultimate essential workers for
getting the workforce back on track. So, if that is what it
would take, then I would say yes, but I do not think with most
of our faculty that will be required.
Senator Burr. I think just as a general statement, your
response is probably the response of faculty. It is probably
the response of teachers in K through 12.
I find it somewhat odd that we mandate that students,
before they attend K though 12, are required to have
vaccinations for certain things, but all the sudden mandatory
vaccinations as it relates to COVID is something that does not
seem achievable.
Mr. Mendoza, can you speak more about your engagement with
community colleges, specifically how you have worked with them
and worked to develop programs to meet the needs of that
employer?
Mr. Mendoza. Yes. Good morning. Thank you.
We have engaged with the community college systems on a lot
of different levels. A lot of our technicians are non-
traditional students. I am talking about gamers, artists,
musicians, chefs, fine arts. And we have partnered with the
community college to not just focus on their technical
programs, but also their non-technical programs. And the
community college has embraced us going in to continue to
communicate and educate their students, and also recruit and
provide opportunities for those students to see different
career paths that they did not necessarily think would be an
opportunity when they started.
What we found has very good direct correlation to the type
of work that we do. So, the willingness for the community
colleges to understand that there may be non-traditional
pathways that local industry can utilize their students from
has been very well received.
We partner very regularly on numerous advisory boards, but
we also work within the corporate college system within our
community college to do a couple of things. A, the facilitation
of grants, workforce development grants, upskilling grants, has
been really important to us, as well as the creation of
customized grants specifically for both our business, as well
as other partners, as part of our industry partnerships.
Senator Burr. Thank you for that.
Ms. Flynn, just real quickly.
Ms. Flynn. Sure.
Senator Burr. Because you raised the question of Pell
Grants, and I think we all share the need to fund better.
Does it concern you at all that valuable Pell dollars
currently are being given to student athletes in higher
education who are on full scholarship? Their education, their
room and board, everything is paid for, their books, their
laundry, and that they are pocketing Pell money because they
technically qualify for it, and it is not going for the
students that actually could benefit from? Does that burn you
up a bit?
Ms. Flynn. I am not familiar with the issue, but that does
concern me, yes.
Senator Burr. Good. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chair. Senator Casey.
Senator Casey. Thanks very much, Chair Murray.
I want to start with Ms. Thomas on a question relating to
community health workers. We know that, Ms. Thomas, in your
testimony, you emphasized the need for training programs that
offer a path to high-demand, high-wage employment
opportunities. The healthcare sector offers many such
opportunities, and within it, community health workers are
critical, but often under-resourced, an under-resourced part of
the workforce.
These workers, as you know better than I, live in and
represent communities they serve. They build trusted
relationships with community members over time. And we all know
that during the pandemic, we have seen the importance of
culturally appropriate health education and outreach by trusted
community members to address health inequities.
I am told by my staff that randomized, controlled trials
that were conducted at the University of Pennsylvania has shown
that community health workers serving individuals with chronic
illnesses save our healthcare system both money and improve
outcomes, and those results are important to emphasize.
As we move into this what we hope will be a full recovery
from the pandemic, we should continue to build our community
health workforce to achieve more inclusive, high-value
healthcare.
Here is my question. How are states and community colleges
helping to train this workforce and build this workforce a
promising career path?
Ms. Thomas. Senator, thank you for your question, and I
could not agree more around the value of our community health
workers. And, in our state in particular, I think this is where
apprenticeship is really at its best. It is where they look at
where those needs exist and how we can really explore what in
some means would be non-traditional means to help community
health workers by engaging in pre-apprenticeship and
apprenticeship opportunities.
This not only gives individuals an opportunity to really
step forward and do work that is vital to the recovery of our
Country from the pandemic, but also in a meaningful career that
will give them the in-demand experience, that will give them
the high wages, and obviously could really change the
trajectory of that person's individual career and their family.
I would argue that apprenticeships is a viable option for
that, and we are exploring that in our state, and I am certain
other states are doing that, as well.
Senator Casey. Thanks very much.
I wanted to move to a question for Ms. Flynn and Dr. Ralls
on community colleges. We know that in 2019, a report by the
Jain Institute found that more than 10 million Americans live
in public education deserts and that these deserts tend to
include low-income communities.
In my home State of Pennsylvania, we currently have 14
community colleges, but that means that 29 counties in our
state have zero facilities. They are not--they do not have
access to a community college, at least not by way of something
being proximate. Folks who live in those areas have to travel
great distances, obviously.
I have prepared legislation that would help close these--
reduce a number of these education deserts by providing
resources to help community colleges or state and local
governments establish community colleges or expand an existing
community college into an underserved area.
Ms. Flynn, can you discuss how expanding community colleges
into underserved communities could impact students who live in
those communities and also promote equity?
Ms. Flynn. Absolutely, Senator. So, I would say definitely
looking at how to expand coverage of community colleges into
those areas is critical, and also seeing if there are
opportunities for community colleges to partner with other
high-quality providers, whether those be online providers or
some of the kind of newer, non-traditional providers that we
see coming into the market.
I think kind of a combination of expansion of coverage
combined with new strategic partnerships could be really
interesting to pursue.
Senator Casey. Thanks very much.
Dr. Ralls, I know that in your testimony, you talk about
the role that your institution plays for both students, as well
as the community. How do you think creating community college
presence in these underserved areas would help spur economic
development?
Dr. Ralls. Well, I think physical presence is vital. Within
every part of North Carolina, you are within 30 miles of a
community college campus. But, what is even more important is
being present in these communities, and that is why within our
particular college, we are targeting that as part of our
strategic plan. Identifying with our county the vulnerable
economic regions health--in terms of economic health, and then
going into those regions for more proactive outreach to help
bring students into our college and support them when they are
with us at our college.
Senator Casey. Thanks very much.
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Cassidy.
[Brief silence.]
The Chair. I think you are on mute.
Senator Cassidy. Oh, I am sorry. No, I am not. I am not on
mute. You cannot hear me?
The Chair. You were muted. You are now good. Go for it.
Senator Cassidy. You were muting me.
[Laughter.]
The Chair. Not me.
Senator Cassidy. Like my family. They always attempt to
mute me.
Anyway, I have a--to Ms. Thomas and Dr. Ralls, I have a
real interest in dyslexia. Twenty percent of the population is
dyslexic, and if you are dyslexic, you are dyslexic for life.
It is seldom screened for and seldom effectively addressed in
most schools.
Now, if you cannot read, you learn to read grades one to
three, and you read to learn after grade four, and our current
system of screening does not start screening until grade three
or four, so we have somewhat predetermined a whole class of
children to be poor readers. You and I both know that reading
well is a prerequisite for most jobs that pay well.
My wife has done screening for dyslexia within a prison
system and found a very high incidence of those who are inmates
read way below high school graduating level.
Now, many of those whom you are attempting to reach, I
gather--and thank you for doing so--have poor educational kind
of background. They have not graduated from high school.
Intuitively, since there is a high incidence of dyslexia among
those who drop out--they cannot read, they get frustrated, they
quit--then I would suspect that you may have a higher percent
of dyslexics, particularly severe dyslexics, in your service
population, more than the 20 percent, which is in the general
population.
With all of that to say, do either of your workforce
centers screen for dyslexia upon entrance into your training
program? Ms. Thomas? Dr. Ralls?
Ms. Thomas. Sir, I will address that first. So, currently,
in our American Job Centers, that screening does not occur. We
do work--and there is a physical presence of our partners in
vocational rehabilitation. And, so, once that referral is made,
they can then start to consider if there are some extenuating
circumstances to help an individual prior to enrollment or
prior to assessment. That is not a common skill set that a lot
of the folks in our American Job Centers have, but we do rely
on our partners to help us in that work prior to sending
someone on to any post-secondary or upskilling opportunities.
Senator Cassidy. Do you have a sense of the average read--
average grade level of reading ability of someone who is in
your job center? You know, do they read on a college level? A
high school? An eighth grade? A sixth grade?
Ms. Thomas. It varies. It varies widely. I will tell you,
it is not unusual for individuals that come in and take part in
assessments before we apply our Title 1 funding to credential
or skill training to have to retake those assessments or need
services from our partners in adult education in the literacy
space for measurable skill gains prior to moving on. That is
not uncommon. And again, we see this particularly with
individuals who may have been out of the educational space for
some time, and particularly for those who do not have a high
school diploma or equivalency.
Senator Cassidy. Dr. Ralls, could you answer those two
questions? Do you screen and what is kind of the mean level of
educational achievement among those who you serve?
Dr. Ralls. No, sir, we do not screen for dyslexia. But,
what we do strive to do is provide and be very proactive in any
types of accommodations for students who are coming into our
degree programs.
I think something else that is very important for us is
being so comprehensive that, it is not just degree college
programs, but it is also we provide the adult basic education
programs, which provide the opportunity for students to start
wherever, and essentially, in many cases, learn to read while
they are at college but keep going further.
We certainly probably could do a better job in screening
and other forms of services, but we--our comprehensiveness
allows for recovery, and I think that is part of the beauty of
community colleges.
Senator Cassidy. Do you have a sense of the percent of your
incoming students who are very poor readers?
Dr. Ralls. In terms of the definition of very poor readers,
one of the things we have worked on is what we define as
college-ready, which then does look at the readiness skills of
individuals that come in through various testing. Our state has
been kind of a model in terms of testing around that, which
certainly does get at reading skills. But, it is one of the
most difficult challenges we face in making those
determinations.
Senator Cassidy. Yes, but no percent--can you give me a
percent of how many read below a high school senior level?
Dr. Ralls. Well, if you did our college readiness, years
ago, when I was assistant president, about two-thirds fell
below that. The truth is, though, our testing was not very
strong and we were over-testing students. And I cannot tell you
specifically how many were falling below a third-grade level.
Still, too many students come in not reading at the level
they need to at college level, and that is why many students,
but a smaller percentage, go into than used to years ago, our
developmental education. And we focus very much on that aspect
of our college to make sure that they can catch up in a
reasonable amount of time, if possible.
Senator Cassidy. Madam Chair, I will--I am over, so I will
concede after this or yield back my time.
That if dyslexia is the No. 1 reason for poor reading, or
even illiteracy--and no fault of these folks--but we are not,
on a Federal level, encouraging the screening of dyslexia at
every point along the way in which we are trying to capture
these folks, I feel like we have program failure. And nothing
criticizing these folks. They are doing God's work. Oh, my
gosh. It is just the children themselves who are being failed
by a system which fails to--which itself fails to go after this
particular issue.
With that, I yield back and I thank you all for your good
work to our folks.
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member
Burr. And another thank you, Madam Chair. Today is thank-you
day for me at all my Committee hearings. I am thanking the
staffs who have been working so hard to make these hybrid
hearings, where witnesses appear both in person and virtually,
and somewhat technically unsavvy Senators, who appear both
virtually and in person. The staffs have done a really good job
of making these work, and I just wanted to open off with----
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Kaine [continuing]. Thanking them, the HELP
Committee staff.
The Chair. I totally agree. Thank you.
Senator Kaine. Dr. Ralls, really good to see you again. We
are so sorry you left Virginia to go to North Carolina. But,
you are like Johnny Appleseed. You are----
[Laughter.]
Senator Kaine [continuing]. Spreading good CTE wherever you
go, and I am really happy to be with you today.
According to some of the DOL data that I have looked at in
the sort of, a year into this pandemic, we have just got
significant, sizable workforce challenges, and that is what we
are trying to address today. I think the DOL suggests that
about four million people are still classified as long-term
unemployed. They have been out of work more than 6 months, and
that total is likely an undercount.
We have got the opportunity and the imperative to help
unemployed individuals access job training to re-enter the
workforce, but many of these workers need access to short-term
programs that will help them earn credentials and re-enter the
workforce quickly, particularly older workers, who need short-
term intents because of the demands that their families and
other obligations they have.
Community and technical colleges in Virginia and all across
the Country are really at the forefront of this, working to
provide these high-quality, short-term programs. And these
programs provide post-secondary pathways, but also immediate
job skills.
In Virginia, Dr. Ralls, as you are very familiar, we have a
program called FastForward that is offered at community
colleges, and it has had very encouraging results leading to
employment for adult learners, and traditionally maybe--
traditionally, in this program, kind of non-traditional
students--more likely to be older; more likely to be people of
color; more likely to be first in the family to be at a
college; more likely to be receiving TANF benefits.
In each testimony today, folks mentioned the need for
Federal financial aid to extend to these short-term programs if
they are high quality. My colleague, Rob Portman, and I,
together with more than 30 Democrats and Republicans, have a
bipartisan bill called the JOBS Act that would extend Pell
Grant eligibility to students who attend high-quality programs
at community colleges and public institutions.
Dr. Ralls, how do you think expanding Pell Grant
eligibility to students for enrollment in high-quality, short-
term programs might open doors both for first time college
students, but also for adult students with families who have
faced hardships in this most challenging time?
Dr. Ralls. I very much endorse that proposal, which
prevent--making Pell eligible for quality, short-term
credentials because so many students, non-traditional workers,
and people in the workforce, they need those short-term
credentials to get the skills to get a job. And a lot of times,
they need those jobs to get the further higher education they
need to further their career.
To me, it is not as much an either-or as it is made out to
be. It is really an `and,' and we need to work more diligently
to make it an `and.' And I think you can make it more `and' by
providing Pell for short-term credentials.
We have been having a skills-versus-degree debate, and I
have frequently heard corporate execs say they do not care
about degrees anymore; they only care about skills, only to
find out that memo never really reached the H.R. department.
If we do it the right way, we can do it well and benefit
our students. You mentioned Virginia. Cloud computing, where
you can start with short-term credentials, and FastForward at
Northern Virginia Community College, you can start an
apprenticeship program and short-term credentials and then move
that into the cloud degree, which then moves over through the
advanced partnership at George Mason.
Same thing in North Carolina. Our BioWorks short-term
credential is an entryway into our fast-growing biotech
ecosystem in the Research Triangle. It gets folks the skills
they need for that job, but then they can bring that into our
degree and then onto the university.
Senator Kaine. Let me just interrupt you for a second and
say I have been a supporter of this JOBS Act for a while before
the pandemic. The pandemic, with this chronic, now long-term
unemployment, makes it seem even more imperative. But, with
President Biden now committed to an infrastructure plan, where
we will have to train and upskill a significant workforce to do
an infrastructure plan of the size we are contemplating, it
would seem even more likely that the skills needed to do the
infrastructure work are likely to be found in these high-
quality, short-term programs. We should not wall off those
necessary careers from Pell Grant eligibility if we want to get
infrastructure done, in my opinion.
Dr. Ralls. I agree. And our degrees need to stack with
those high-quality programs so our students do not have to
start over. You can start in those workforce skill training
programs, third-party assessment, high-quality, short-term
certification. And then we have to do a stronger job to make
sure that they walk into our degrees so that our students are
not stunted, if you will.
Senator Kaine. Yes.
Dr. Ralls. That they have a ladder, that they can keep
moving forward, and they always have opportunities for career
advancement.
Senator Kaine. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Chair Murray.
The Chair. Thank you.
I will turn to Senator Hassan.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and our
Ranking Member, Senator Burr. I want to thank all of the
witnesses, as well, for joining us today for a really important
conversation on how we can best support workers who are
unemployed, underemployed, or who have fallen out of the labor
force.
Before I start with questions, Madam Chair, I would like to
ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record this
statement from the Society of Human Resource Managers about the
importance of employer-provided education assistance.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 57 in
Additional Material]
Senator Hassan. Thank you.
Ms. Flynn, I would like to start with a question to you.
Good morning. A workforce strategy I have long supported, first
as Governor of New Hampshire and now in the Senate, are career
pathways programs, and we have certainly talked about those a
bit this morning. These programs engage workers, who have
fallen out of the labor force, to make progress in their career
through industry partnerships with higher education so
participants can receive educational credentials while also
earning an income.
I recently re-introduced the Gateway to Careers Act with
Senators Young, Kaine, and Collins. That is a bipartisan bill
to expand career pathways, as well as provide wrap-around
supports for learners who face barriers to completion--supports
like help in accessing affordable housing or covering
transportation costs.
Do you agree that supporting career pathways is an
important investment to help our most vulnerable workers re-
enter or advance in the workforce?
Ms. Flynn. Thank you, Senator. I wholeheartedly agree with
that. At Jobs for the Future, we have been supporters of career
pathways now for several decades, and we are proud to support
the bill that you mentioned. I think that particularly now, as
we recover from the pandemic, really ensuring that the
individuals, the workers, who have been left behind, really
have that comprehensive set of supports to help them move back
into the labor market and along a career pathway to economic
self-sufficiency. So, I think it is really critical.
We have been involved over the years in helping to
replicate the I-BEST program in Senator Murray's home State of
Washington, really looking at how to help low-wage, low-skilled
workers get on that path to economic advancements. Very much
so.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you for that.
I now have a question to all four of our witnesses, and I
am just going to read it and then go in order here.
I often hear from employers that they struggle to find the
workers that they need to hire for openings, and certainly Mr.
Mendoza has spoken to that this morning. Some of these
employers have successfully engaged with community colleges and
our state workforce system in New Hampshire to build workforce
pipelines to actively recruit and train workers, including
through career pathway programs like the ones we just
discussed.
To each of you, how important is it for employers to be
involved with the development of workforce and education
programs to ensure that individuals who complete a program have
local job opportunities? And, can you speak to how best to do
this? And I will start with Ms. Flynn and then go to Dr. Ralls,
and then we will go to our two witnesses who are with us
remotely.
Ms. Flynn. I would say it is absolutely critical to have
employers deeply involved in the system and to help really co-
design the solutions that are being put in place. A lot of that
activity obviously needs to happen kind of at the regional
labor market level.
But, I feel that, as we look at future policy change and
legislation, finding ways to make that engagement easier for
employers, I think, is really key, particularly large-scale
employers who are trying to engage, community after community.
How can we help to streamline that process for them. How can we
also be looking at feedback loops where employers can more
easily provide their feedback to community colleges and other
training providers on, kind of the quality of the skills that
they are seeing in the graduates.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you.
Dr. Ralls.
Dr. Ralls. It is absolutely vital because they, the
employers, have to set our targets and we have to hit those
targets. And if we do not, then it means that our students do
not have the opportunity for the economic prosperity, which
they come to us for. So, it is absolutely vital.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. Mr. Mendoza, would you like to
address this?
Mr. Mendoza. Yes. Thank you very much, Senator.
Employers have to be flexible, also, and willing to think
outside of the box, and that means being willing to accommodate
different pathways and different interests that people have.
And that is something that has been really important to Optimax
as far as taking the non-traditional pathway. There is not a
one-size-fits-all approach. So, as an organization, we have to
be willing to incorporate multiple different types of people
and disciplines within this type of infrastructure.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much.
Ms. Thomas.
Ms. Thomas. Thank you, Senator. Yes, I absolutely agree
that employer input is vital. After all, with any of the
training, whether it is career pathways or other structured
programs, employers are really the validators of the rigor of
those programs because this will be their workforce. And, so,
it is critical for us to position ourselves to be flexible so
when employers provide that input, we can co-design and co-
architect programs that are meaningful to employers for a full
workforce, not just for today, but for the future, as well.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you very much, and thank you,
Madam Chair.
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Smith.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I am glad to be
with you. We have a bunch of Committee hearings going on today,
so I appreciate this chance to join you. I have a question that
I would like to ask Ms. Thomas.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted so clearly the
crucial role of the public health workforce. Julie Whitcomb,
who is a community health services manager from Watonwan County
Public Health Department, said this to me, and I think it makes
so much sense. She said, I often say public health is doing
good jobs when we are not in the news. But, when you hear about
outbreaks, such as lice in schools, and tuberculosis--when you
don't hear about outbreaks in schools of tuberculosis, for
example.
The reality is that a strong public health system depends
on a strong, talented workforce to make it all work. Nearly
half, I understand, of the public health workforce is
considering leaving in the next 5 years. Twenty-two percent
will retire. Twenty-five percent are leaving for other reasons,
including lower wages and competition of the private sector, or
even, geographic challenges.
I have also heard from a lot of public health departments
in Minnesota that the loan forgiveness programs are really
critical for making public health a more viable career choice.
Ms. Thomas, could you talk a little bit about the
challenges that you have seen when it comes to retaining a
public health workforce and how the loan forgiveness programs
can help recruit and retain this workforce?
Ms. Thomas. Thank you, Senator. And yes, certainly our
public healthcare workers are essential to our Nation for so
many reasons, and yes, we have seen challenges. And,
oftentimes, the time it takes for someone to be an R.N., for
example, and the pathway progression toward that occupation,
loan forgiveness would be huge. Because often, when we see
individuals who have an interest, even starting in the
secondary level, if they have an interest, you think about the
runway that it takes to become skilled, trained, degreed in
this profession.
For those particularly who are facing barriers as it is
now, it is more than sometimes they can often imagine. And, so,
really breaking it out in these career pathways and in these
start/stops, it allows individuals to experience, take part in
public education and healthcare without being committed to a
longer progression.
In other words, it may start as just sort of a frontline,
personal care attendant or something of those sorts, and they
learn and gain experience, and then the hope for a more robust
experience in public health begins to emerge. And, so, loan
forgiveness takes away that barrier.
Someone who has always wanted to be a nurse, for example,
or a doctor, but did not think that it was possible because of
where they are, it now provides an opportunity and an open
pathway for individuals to begin to embark and seek on a career
in public health. And, so, it is a challenge. We obviously need
more workers.
I spoke earlier about apprenticeship. These programs,
again, work-based education in public health is critical, and
we need more apprenticeship programs that allow for a faster
progression to be able to create workers that we know hospitals
and other organization so vitally need.
Senator Smith. Yes. So, this is a strategy not only for
recruiting and retaining workforce, but also for recruiting and
retaining a diverse workforce, which is such a great need as
we--because we know so clearly that a public health workforce
that is connected to community is going to be more trusted,
more--just able to do a better job in so many ways. I really--I
appreciate that very much.
I want to just mention that I have a bill with Senator
Booker that would provide education loan repayment assistance
to people who work at the state, local, or tribal public health
departments, and this bill would provide the tools that we need
to build this kind of sustainable workforce, a diverse
workforce, that is really ready to address any public health
crisis. And I think this past year, 14 months, has really
demonstrated what a crucial need this is right now. Thank you.
Madam Chair, I will take back the rest of my time. Thank
you so much.
The Chair. Thank you.
Can I just say to any of our Senators who would like to be
at the Committee hearing, can you let us know if you are going
to be here? I know there is a number of hearings this morning,
and everybody is trying to turn schedules around. We just want
to make sure we do not exclude anybody. So, if you are there,
please get onboard.
Senator Burr.
Senator Burr. Madam Chair, if we do not have anybody cued
up--I know some are on their way--could I ask one additional
question----
The Chair. Absolutely.
Senator Burr [continuing]. If nobody is cued?
The Chair. Great.
Senator Burr. Dr. Ralls, our Committee is working on
expanding apprenticeships, and I am sort of proud of the work
that North Carolina's community colleges have done on this
space, including the industry-recognized apprenticeship
programs.
Can you share more about apprenticeship programs in North
Carolina?
Dr. Ralls. Apprenticeship in North Carolina is growing and
growing rapidly. About 3 years ago, the system moved into the
community college system that allowed the connection between
the workforce training and apprenticeship for the related
training in North Carolina. And you can see it both in the
numbers of students--or the numbers of apprentices, which have
grown significantly, and the broadening to beyond the
traditional apprenticeship areas of construction and
manufacturing to many other sectors.
In our county, we are proud--our county commissioners saw
this as a vital opportunity to connect more students to
prosperity through apprenticeship. They have provided special
funding to our college so that we can go and help facilitate
companies to become registered apprenticeship companies, as
well as provide the related training free of charge, tuition-
free, at Wake Tech.
We are seeing very large number growth. We just had a
signing ceremony just a couple weeks ago with 50 new
apprentices. And what is so important about it, I think, is the
opportunities it provides for students who may not have those
opportunities otherwise to get experience, to get into a hiring
scenario they would not be in.
We have an amazing story of a student who grew up as a
foster youth, and through work-based learning--it was not a
formal apprenticeship, but through work-based learning with
Lenovo, and in our computer training, computer programming
degree. She was a widow with five kids, and now she is a team
lead at Lenovo. And those are the kinds of programs, work-based
learning and apprenticeship, that give students, like this
student, Tiffany Harrell, that opportunity that they would not
have otherwise.
Senator Burr. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chair. Thank you. I will go to Senator Rosen and then
to Senator Tuberville.
Senator Rosen.
Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member
Burr, for holding this hearing today, for your commitment to a
bipartisan collaboration on a workforce package. We certainly
need it because, as Nevada and the Nation begin to recover from
the worst unemployment crisis in living memory, I am glad this
Committee is focused on creating jobs and training workers to
fill all the positions so we can get all Americans back to
work. But, I would like to speak a little bit about advanced
manufacturing and cyber jobs.
Mr. Mendoza, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Nevada was among the leading states in advanced manufacturing
with 16 percent annual growth. Despite this growth, many
training gaps remained. That is why I introduced the American--
I mean the Advanced Manufacturing Jobs in America Act,
bipartisan legislation that would create a pilot program,
connecting colleges, workforce boards, and manufacturers to
facilitate advanced manufacturing training programs.
In light of the pandemic, I am pleased that Western Nevada
College has helped fill some of these gaps by offering the
Manufacturing Technician Certificate, which includes skills
training in advanced manufacturing. It is free to any Nevadan
who has been laid off due to COVID-19, and I am glad that the
Biden Administration has called for additional investment in
this field. So, Mr. Mendoza, as someone appointed to advise
President Biden on manufacturing policies, I look forward to
working with you on these issues.
Could you speak to the importance of training both
unemployed and existing workers so that they have the skills
necessary to compete for those good-paying advanced
manufacturing jobs?
Mr. Mendoza. Thank you, Senator Rosen. It sounds like an
awesome program. And our responsibility to grow and develop our
existing workforces, those that find these types of
environments exciting, is what fuels our growth.
Technology is changing so fast that we have to be extremely
proactive on this. And employees and potential employees also
want the opportunity to continue to grow and evolve in their
roles. So, having well-structured career pathways, but also
opportunities to learn from no experience whatsoever is super
important and part of our commitment. And, especially, industry
has to be willing to step up and support this and encourage
this.
We have talked about a lot of things in here, and that is
including understanding the diversity of learning within your
existing workforce, to being able to onboard and incorporate
the entire learning spectrum of potential employees moving
forward.
That has been extremely vital to us, and we are looking
forward to continuing to partner on specific programs.
Senator Rosen. Well, I am glad you mention that because I
want to talk a little bit about the role of minority-serving
institutions because we know all too well, again, COVID-19 has
exposed disparities in our society across the board in
healthcare, education, job opportunities, and access to
services.
Ms. Flynn, I was pleased to see that the Jobs for the
Future is thinking about the American workforce recovery with
emphasis on closing these gaps. So, in Nevada, five of our
colleges and universities are designated as minority-serving
institutions, so we are very proud of that.
But, how can Congress and the Administration better support
MSIs as a provider of workforce training, and how do we
connect? To Mr. Mendoza's point, how do we connect them with
the job creators to be sure that we are filling the needs? We
need to create that partnership between training and jobs.
Ms. Flynn. Absolutely, Senator, and I agree that minority-
serving institutions are a key piece of the recovery puzzle.
And I think providing them with the resources and the kind of
capacity building that they need to help really build those
strong employer partnerships in their communities is critical.
Helping them engage more broadly with the public workforce
system to most effectively kind of utilize those resources that
the system can provide.
Really building in strong career navigation for their
students and for the leaders of those institutions to really
help enable students to make great, informed decisions about
their career paths.
But, I think really being intentional about the resources
and building those strong connection points is critically
important.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. And I do agree with your word
intentional. We must be intentional about this. We have an
opportunity to see who we want to be, who we need to be coming
out of this pandemic, and I look forward to creating as many
partnerships between the private sector, our universities, and
our workforce training as possible.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Tuberville.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you for being here today and testifying.
Workforce development has been huge on my agenda for years.
I have been in education for 40 years, traveled the world,
traveled the Country, trying to help kids get jobs.
I will say this. I have noticed, our four-year universities
have become businesses instead of education institutions where
we get them prepared for a job. It is a shame that has
happened, but it--again, a business, people have to make a
living, but we need to recognize that.
I think our--to be honest and blunt with you, I think our
education system is outdated. I think we need to make some
major changes. But, that being said, the big feel is we need to
train kids for future workforce, and we need to get them to the
point where they know how to use their hands, know how to use
their brains, and understand work and work ethic.
The one thing that I have noticed in two-year schools is we
have got to get them involved in some kind of situation where
they learn how to use their hands, not in a two-year school,
but in high school.
I have gone through thousands of transcripts the last years
and our twelve-year system, to me, is outdated. We do not push
kids. We get to the last eleventh and twelfth grade of the
years and they are taking activity courses, study halls, and we
are not preparing them. And I truly believe that we need to
teach them something in the last two years of their high
school. Get them involved in something where they can get
interested in--whether it is wood shop, welding, nursing,
cooking, and teach that and teach them how to do things like
that.
Am I on the right track there? Just get your, both of your
opinions.
Ms. Flynn. I think you are on absolutely the right track. I
think that really we need to be thinking about pathways that
really span from, ninth grade up through sort of grade 14. So,
four years of high school and two years of post-secondary
training. Really embedding that high-quality, work-based
learning in high school is key. How you kind of think
intentionally about those kind of career pathways and career
progression across those grades. At JFF, we lead an initiative
called the Pathways to Prosperity Network, where we are working
with states and regions to build those types of systems.
I also think we need to be looking at how to continue to
address the, I think, outdated and somewhat unfair stigma
around career and technical education. So, how can we help
educate students and parents and school leaders about these
great opportunities that are in the skilled trades and other
opportunities. And just that, CTE is not what it was when my
mother worked in that system back in the 1970's. It is a very
different system now, and we need to keep pushing for
modernization and improvement and agility.
Senator Tuberville. Well, this is my concern. We are coming
out of a pandemic, hopefully, and we hear we have six, 7
percent unemployment. That is wrong. We have got millions of
jobs out there right now.
No. 1, people are not looking for jobs. People are sitting
at home.
But, that being said, I am not worried about those people
out there now that are out of school. I am worried about the
kids coming up and being motivated to say, listen, I want to go
make a great living. I want to start a business. I want to do
something. I want to use my hands. And we have to start
encouraging them.
But, we are coming out of this pandemic where a lot of
people have been virtual, and you cannot learn to use your
hands virtual, just watch it on TV and all that.
But, how are we going to get kids back motivated after this
pandemic, actively? I think we are overlooking that. We are
saying, oh, we are just going to open back up and we are going
to go back out and put this to a test. Education is the most
important thing in this Country. That is our future, and we
better start getting a handle on that.
How do you think we do that?
Dr. Ralls. I think you are on the right track. I think we
have to look for those places where students can apply, not
just, learn the theoretical. And I think that is something of
what you are talking about.
I think, also, you noted the notion between making the
connections between high schools and college and community
colleges. You know, when we talk about career pathways, or we
talk about ladders at my institution, it is not just our career
pathways. It is their career pathways, and that really starts
in high school.
Programs like dual enrollment, youth apprenticeship, early
college high schools. We have career and college academies, and
that also sparks the opportunities for apprenticeship.
In North Carolina now, if you start in a youth
apprenticeship program, like our manufacturing programs, and
you are employed as an apprentice within 6 months of
graduating, then you get free tuition. It incentivizes that.
I think those kind of connections are important, and
thinking about our pathways and our ladders are not just about
within our institutions. They have to cross our institutions,
and that is the way I think we have to think about it.
Senator Tuberville. The only thing I worry about, free
tuition for junior colleges, and really for four-year schools,
is the part of learning how to go out on your own. How to learn
how to, be responsible for yourself. If something is free, you
do not work as hard. We have all found that out. And I think if
you have got skin in the game, then it is pretty hard to quit.
It is pretty hard to kick the can down the road. And I think
you will both agree, we need kids to learn how to work. That is
the No. 1 thing, I think, that we need to do.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Hickenlooper.
Senator Hickenlooper. Yes. Thank you very much, Chair
Murray, and thank you for pulling this really astounding
meeting together. I cannot remember the last time I have heard
so many things that, just make me want to accelerate in terms
of how we address the gaps that we see all around us, in terms
of the skills that not just kids, but kids of all ages need.
I wanted to ask a question first of Ms. Flynn. Thank you
all for your testimony today. Really, a wonderful hearing.
Ms. Flynn, many small-or medium-size businesses do not
really have the resources or the relevant experience on being
able to create their own apprenticeship-type training programs.
And that is why several of us on HELP are working to try and
create the PARTNERS Act, which will provide grants to
businesses to allow them to get together and build industry-
specific apprenticeship programs.
How can we do a better job of helping those small
businesses be able to access apprenticeships? And I think you
are aware, we have a wonderful program in Colorado called
CareerWise. We have a waiting list of businesses, but not as
many small businesses as I think we should have.
Ms. Flynn. Yes, Senator Hickenlooper. I think it is a
wonderful question. I think there is a lot more that we can and
should be doing for small and medium employers, both in terms
of registered apprenticeship and, more broadly, around engaging
in workforce programs.
I think the CareerWise program that Noel Ginsburg runs in
Colorado is a terrific example of that intermediary work. And I
know they are also expanding their efforts into New York City.
So, I think seeing how we can continue to provide and provide
additional support for those intermediary organizations,
whether that be at a state or a regional level, I think can
really help to alleviate some of the administrative burden from
small and medium employers.
But, as you said, I think there is also, if you are not
seeing a number of those kind of engaging now, really helping
to continue to dispel some of the myths around registered
apprenticeship I think is key. I think that there is still a--
kind of a thought in this Country that it is kind of only
around the skilled trades, only involved, with organized labor,
et cetera.
I think continuing to dispel those myths and really talking
to employers about how we are building on those long-term
traditions, but expanding into new sectors, new occupations,
and how the role the intermediary can really help make that
engagement more streamlined and efficient for employers.
Senator Hickenlooper. Let me just plead back on that. As we
get better integration and coordination between various
intermediaries in these types of skills training, and maybe
even take apprenticeships and expand them so it is not just for
kids who would otherwise just be in high school, we also get to
that notion of learning all--lifetime learning and people being
able to get individual credentials, what they call stackable
credentials, as you know well.
How do we take this moment, where we really are focusing on
workforce in I think a new and fresh way, and make sure that we
can partner with, corporate America and large and small
businesses to make sure we get best of practices and create a
national system of stackable credentials? Does that seem
something that used to be so far-fetched and now seems somewhat
more accessible? How do you feel on that?
Ms. Flynn. I agree. I think that this past year has made
that seem more accessible, for sure. I think that trends that,
15 months ago, we would have been saying were 5, 10, 20 years
off are now currently, in front of us in the near term.
I do think that really thinking, again, intentionally about
creating that type of system to ensure that the stackability is
real, that these stacks are actually providing, paths to
degrees for students and workers who are seeking those
opportunities can actually happen.
As we saw in a recent report from a credential engine,
there are over a million credentials now in the U.S., and so it
is quite a maze of opportunities. And I think the more we could
invest in a career navigation system that can help workers and
learners navigate that and really determine which paths are
high quality will really be important.
Senator Hickenlooper. Absolutely. I could not agree more.
Again, I thank all of the people providing testimony today.
Thank you so much, and I look forward--I am going to read all
of your written testimony to make sure that I do not miss
anything. Thank you all.
I yield back my time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chair. Thank you very much, Senator.
I have one additional question, and then I will turn to
Senator Burr. Do you have any other questions?
Okay. I believe Senator Braun is going to be here. I will
notify him he has about one minute.
Ms. Thomas, while we are waiting, the healthcare system has
experienced a shortage of homecare workers and trained
caregivers for some time, and this shortage is expected to get
worse as the population ages and more people require these
services. Can you share some examples of your agency's work to
address the supports that we need to recruit and retain service
providers, like homecare workers for older adults and people
with disabilities?
Ms. Thomas. Yes. Thank you, Senator. And certainly this is,
one entry-level occupation that we tend to see a great need
starting to arise and has arisen over the last several years.
And I will go back to an earlier comment that I made regarding
those who have interest in the healthcare industry but maybe
are not ready to take the full leap into some of the nursing
degrees.
Through career navigation, we are able to help individuals
really take the first step, the first rung on the ladder, to
really explore opportunities as home health aides and personal
care aides. What we find is particularly a barrier for this
group is because of the salary structure, childcare and other
supports are often needed to do that. But, we do find an
interest for those who are wanting to really start this as a
first phase in the healthcare industry.
We work a lot, particularly with those who are looking for
part-time work, who maybe are in school during the day or have
small children and need options for someone to watch their
children and maybe work at night or overnight.
This is an ideal population that we can work with,
instruct, at least get them familiar and gain work experience,
and then look for opportunities to build out that pathway. But,
that is something that we find there is absolutely a rising
need, and we certainly see this as an opportunity to leverage,
to really expand opportunities in public health workers across
our state.
The Chair. Thank you very much.
Senator Burr, you had one additional question?
Senator Burr. Just one quick question, Madam Chair. I will
direct it to our two witnesses that are here, and if those that
are virtually with us have anything to add that is not covered,
please do.
I am curious. You have mentioned Pell as policies that
Congress should consider to better support access to quality,
short-term training programs. What other things would you like
to highlight other than Pell for these short-term programs that
would help?
Ms. Flynn.
Ms. Flynn. In addition to expanding Pell, I think we would
look at skill accounts, or kind of an expansion of the current
individual training accounts, under WIOA since we know that a
lot of dislocated workers or working poor would not be eligible
for the Pell dollars. So, I think looking to how to build upon
that current authority within WIOA, but build that out with
additional funding.
Also, continuing to really enhance the quality of the
eligible training provider list. I think that provider quality
is not just, a key question in the short-term Pell debate, but
more broadly around how do we ensure that workers and learners
are pursuing high-quality programs.
We would also look at how to really open up some access to
Federal dollars for some of the kind of newer, non-traditional
providers that are out there. Some of the for-profit models who
have a very strong evidence base behind them. So, I think being
careful not to kind of put all of, for-profit providers in a
box that they are bad actors. Really looking at the issue of
quality and how to direct Federal funds accordingly.
Senator Burr. Dr. Ralls.
Dr. Ralls. Other than Pell, the other primary way in which
individuals receive training is through WIOA. I think what we
have seen in some of the testimony, the written testimonies
identified that, there has been pretty significant decreases in
funding. And oftentimes, the training available through WIOA,
it becomes rather sparse.
It is a challenge. I think you have to push more
connections as much as possible, particularly between the
workforce system and the education system.
When we look at short-term credentials, I think third-party
industry credential certifications are important.
I think it is very important for those degree--or
credentials also to stack into our degrees, because too often,
job training alone can be siloed and not lead to the
opportunities for career advancement.
Again, as I said in my testimony, our traditional higher ed
degrees are too often inaccessible for students. And we need
both. We do not need the either/or. We need the `and.'
I think, also, community colleges are key in that. Too
often, we are treated just as another provider, and I think we
are also a very unique backbone to the workforce and the
training system in the United States.
I think some of the funding supports, like the TAC Grants
we had before, and others, are going to be vital to standing up
what I believe is the training backbone and the educational
backbone for many of these individuals throughout the United
States, through America's community colleges.
Senator Burr. Have they missed anything that our virtual
witnesses would like to add? Hearing no----
Ms. Thomas. Sir, I would just like to add just one thing.
We talked about sort of the nature of the individual training
accounts and the funding being somewhat limited. But, also, not
just the availability of the skilled training itself, but the
worker supports that come along with that. We look at things
like transportation, for example, particularly in rural
communities where it may not be immediately accessible to get
to a training site.
Worker support expansion would be critical in the context
of when we are looking at skill training to make sure that it
is actually a package that we can offer to individuals looking
to undertake those options.
Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chair. I think Mr. Mendoza wanted to add something.
Senator Burr. Okay.
Mr. Mendoza. Thank you very much, Senator.
It is critical for us that we continue to have the
opportunity to upskill our workforce. And using our industry
partnership models to continue to partner, to continue to
provide opportunities for potential employees and our existing
employees is really important to our continued growth, and not
having that is going to be an issue.
As I indicated, we provide a thousand hours of training a
month because we have to, and we need continued support so that
we can continue making sure that we can meet the expectations,
both of our existing workforce, but also our customers.
Thank you very much for your time.
The Chair. Thank you very much.
Senator Braun, you have arrived in the nick of time. You
get the last word. Go.
Senator Braun. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Something I really am going to enjoy having the last word
on. I cannot tell you how much I wrestled with this subject
prior to becoming a U.S. Senator. I started a little business
that was so small I never had to worry about it because I
didn't have enough employees. But, when it became a national
company over many, many years, after serving on a school board
for 10 years, trying to wrestle with how we better the feeder
system of proper training to get into the pipeline.
I come from a city and county, the lowest unemployment
county in town, generally, month after month in normal times.
Go home, travel the state, I cannot get away from workforce
development, CTE, education in general.
I want to give you a little example of how I wrestled with
it as a state legislator. For one of the 3 years I was on the
Education Committee, and my brother was head of our workforce
development within the state, biggest manufacturing state per
capita. Always a low unemployment level.
I simply said that I do not need more four-year degrees. We
export twice as many as we use in Indiana. The whole system was
being stigmatized, was being guided toward more of what we do
not need. And I made such a point of it--my brother was even
there that day--I was off the Education Committee the next
year. I think this might have been the reason.
We need, in my opinion, better guidance, with parents
involved, when kids are eighth graders so that they do not get
into the system being pushed into a misguided future without
knowing the options. Nothing against four-year degrees, but we
just do not need them in many businesses. We need better skills
coming out of high school.
Is there enough of that happening currently in your mind?
And is higher ed, just like in my state, actually saying one
thing, actually guiding otherwise at the secondary level, and
still getting results, to me, that are not as good as they
should be with as much money as we are spending on it?
Any of the witnesses could weigh in on that mouthful.
Ms. Flynn. I am happy to start, Senator, and I could not
agree more.
To me, one of the top priorities in looking at workforce
reform in our Country is investing in designing a true, high-
quality national career navigation system. I think that whether
it is students in eighth grade, their families, whether it is
high school students who are looking at their post-secondary
options, whether it is a long-term unemployed individual who is
looking to get back in the labor market.
As it stands right now in our Country, we do a terrible job
of providing those individuals with the information that they
need on what is the best bets for them. You know, what--how do
they think about their future.
I am here with my daughter today, who is an eleventh
grader. But, I remember when she came home in about eighth
grade, knowing what I do for a living, and she said, Mom, no
one talks to us about jobs.
I think that is too true, right? I think that too often the
issue of careers is left behind. It is secondary, and it is not
where I think it should be at the center of these education
conversations throughout a student's pathway.
Dr. Ralls. Senator, I think something you are talking about
that resonates with me is something we always struggle with,
and we call it the interest gap. You know, knowing the job
opportunities that are there and sometimes the lack of student
interest or parent interest in the pathways to those jobs.
I think we have to take different approaches. I think we
have to--we have to step back and realize that we still think
about college and higher ed being traditional when most
students are non-traditional. I think we have to be non-
traditional in our thinking about what we mean by career and
technical education.
Too often, the rhetoric is greater than the resources in
that regard. We have to step up in that regard. Our college is
trying to do that. You can see that in our facilities, not
making our career technical facilities at the back part of the
college. They are putting them right up front and using them as
attraction for students.
Being able to, I think, ladder students, again, not just
thinking about our career pathways that are just at our college
or just in this program because you can receive tremendous
opportunities by non-traditional pathways. We talked earlier
about the manufacturing pathways, where you can start in high
school as a youth apprentice. Come to us, get a two-year
degree, but you can transfer that degree to ECU and have
tremendous opportunities at East Carolina, coming out in
management in those regards.
Same thing with automotive. We just worked out an
articulation for our automotive students in technical programs,
but to go to Northwood University and actually go into
management.
We have got to step back and think differently about what
we have too often thought about too traditionally.
Senator Burr. Madam Chair, could I just offer an example of
what I think Senator Braun just talked about?
In one county in North Carolina, the school system offers
for tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders an automotive option,
as well as some other career options. Over 200 students
constantly are enrolled in that automotive piece. And upon
graduation from high school, every student is offered a job
somewhere close to that home county with a starting salary in
excess of $35,000 for an automobile dealership. To the student
who wants to go further than that, with an additional year
somewhere, they will be hired by the Mercedes, BMW dealerships
somewhere in the southeast, making over $100,000 a year
starting salary.
This--since the expertise are only out of our head versus
out of our hands, they prove to be wrong. It is just a very
difficult thing to export from where it is to every community
across the state, Scott, and across the Country.
But, I think community colleges, as they recognize that,
become a little more traditional in the offerings that they
have and they begin to offer those programs that provide a job
on the other end, like we saw out of high school. But, I think
it is right at the heart of your thought.
The Chair. Thank you very much.
That will end our hearing today. And I do want to thank all
of our colleagues and witnesses--Ms. Flynn, Ms. Thomas, Dr.
Ralls, Mr. Mendoza. Very productive hearing. We appreciate it.
We do have an urgent challenge ahead of us when it comes to
tackling the jobs crisis that is caused by this pandemic, in
rebuilding our economy stronger and fairer. As this discussion
today showed, strengthening our workforce programs to better
support workers can play a key role in that effort.
I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are
interested in getting this done. I am hopeful that working
together, we can turn this bipartisan support into bipartisan
solutions.
For any Senators who wish to ask additional questions,
questions for the record will be due in 10 business days,
Tuesday, May 4, at 5 p.m. The hearing record will remain open
until then for Members who wish to submit additional material
for the record.
This Committee will next meet tomorrow, Wednesday, April
21, to mark up the nominations of Julie Su to be Deputy
Secretary of Labor, Cindy Marten to be Deputy Secretary of
Education, and James Kvaal to be Undersecretary of Education.
This Committee will meet on Thursday, April 22 at 10 a.m.
in Dirksen 430 for a hearing on Protecting U.S. Biomedical
Research.
With that, the Committee stands adjourned.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
National Urban League,
April 20, 2021.
Hon. Patty Murray, Chair,
U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Russell Senate Office Building Room 154,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chair Murray:
On behalf of the National Urban League and our 90 affiliates across
36 states and the District of Columbia, I write to thank you for
holding this important hearing on ``COVID-19 Recovery: Supporting
Workers and Modernizing the Workforce Through Quality Education,
Training, and Employment Opportunities.'' We welcome this opportunity
to provide our perspective on the importance of ensuring equity in our
national workforce system and COVID-19 recovery.
As you know,the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the lives of
millions of Americans, with our communities of color faring the worst.
Due in large part to the socio-economic and health disparities that
pre-dated this pandemic, Black, Latino, and Native American families
have been hit particularly hard by illness, unemployment, and economic
instability.
As our Nation begins to recover from the multitude of challenges
brought on by this unprecedented public health and economic crisis, our
Nation's leaders must use all Federal levers available to help
eliminate the many inequities in our society, including in our
workforce system, that continue to contribute to our Nation's widening
racial wealth gap.
Black Americans were among the hardest hit by coronavirus layoffs,
and are now recovering at the slowest rate. Many of the industries in
which Black workers are heavily represented are not recovering as
quickly as others as the economy reopens--or are even continuing to
backslide. This threatens to worsen stark wealth and income disparities
long after the pandemic is over. Currently, the unemployment rate for
Black Americans is 9.6 percent, while this number is 5.4 percent for
White Americans. This difference isn't surprising--since the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting data on the African
American unemployment rate in January 1972, this rate has consistently
been twice as high as the White unemployment rate. In urban areas, this
disparity can be even greater (up to 6 times as high in Washington DC,
for example).
As we look to improve our workforce system and leverage it for
economic recovery by ensuring people can gain necessary skills to
secure a good job, we must make sure this access extends to people of
color and other underserved people, who have faced historical and
systemic barriers to employment and have been hardest hit by COVID-19-
related economic downturns.
The National Urban League and our affiliates have launched several
successful programs, increasing opportunities for populations with
barriers to employment, including those who are long-term unemployed,
seniors, and people transitioning out of the criminal justice system.
Our Urban Tech Jobs Program began in 2016 as an intervention
addressing long term unemployment, and has since expanded to help
address the digital divide. The program operates in seven cities, and
has served over 600 long term unemployed individuals to prepare them
for jobs that were in the tech sector or technology interfacing jobs.
Our Urban Seniors Program provides job training to mature workers who,
due to the economic downturn, are finding the need to return to work.
Since 2007, this program has served over 1,300 adults. Our Urban
Pathway Home program is designed to break the cycle of recidivism with
pre-release and post-release support and job training for returning
citizens.
With our experience serving these populations, we recognize the
need for updates to our Nation's workforce system and look forward to
working with you to ensure we make the changes needed to ensure equity
and provide for economic recovery.
Thank you for your consideration. Should you have any questions,
please contact Susie Feliz or Morgan Polk at the National Urban League.
Sincerely,
Marc H. Morial,
President & CEO,
National Urban League.
______
the society for human resource management statement for the
congressional record
As Congress considers legislative proposals to spur the Nation's
post-pandemic economic recovery, it is critical any final solution
encourage bold investments in the American workforce. Investments,
including employer-provided education assistance, will support efforts
to build a talent pipeline that meets the needs of a post-pandemic
landscape and contribute to future U.S. economic growth.
Providing education assistance is an important tool American
employers have long used to build, attract and retain a skilled
workforce, and one that will be a critical component of recovery moving
forward. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has been a
longtime advocate in support of efforts to strengthen and expand
employer-provided education assistance as a workplace benefit.
First enacted in 1978, this employer-provided education assistance
benefit has had a widespread, positive impact on employers and
employees alike. However, the $5,250 exclusion has not been increased
in over 40 years and must be updated to respond to current workplace
and workforce needs. Section 127 of the Internal Revenue Code allows
employees to exclude up to $5,250 from income per year for courses at
the associate, undergraduate and graduate levels with education
assistance provided by their employer.
According to a SHRM Employee Benefits survey conducted in 2019, 56
percent of employers provided education assistance to their employees.
As learning continues to evolve, so must education benefits. It is
critical that employers have the flexibility to offer support
throughout a variety of stages in the education lifecycle to give
employees choices when making education-related decisions.
In the 116th Congress, Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Todd
Young (R-IN) introduced S. 4408, the Upskilling and Retraining
Assistance Act, a proposal to provide the updates necessary to
modernize employer-provided education assistance. S. 4408 proposed to
temporarily increase the dollar amount of education assistance
employees can receive from employers to $12,000 and to permit expenses
for the tools and technology required to complete their educational
programs to be covered. Solutions like these are imperative in
America's economic recovery as they promote training and upskilling, a
key element of supporting U.S. workers and modernizing the American
workforce.
Employer-provided education assistance benefits are not only
necessary to meet current needs; used to invest in training and
development of the workforce they will have a lasting impact on work,
workers and the workplace and the U.S. economy for years to come. These
benefits are used to reskill and upskill existing employees to fill
open positions and address the U.S. skills shortage. By investing in
their existing talent pool, employers have seen a return on investment
of more than 100 percent. Employees who take advantage of employer-
provided education assistance improve their opportunities for upward
mobility and wage growth. Entry-level and mid-management education
assistance recipients received, on average, a 43 percent incremental
wage increase over a three-year period as compared to non-recipients.
Furthermore, investment in workforce development through education,
training and employment opportunities will encourage financial
stability and savings. The pandemic has created financial hardships,
forcing some to remain in the workforce longer than anticipated,
delaying life milestones like starting a family, purchasing a home,
saving for retirement and the ability to pay for critical services like
health care. Investments like employer-provided education assistance is
not the answer to all of the above, but can be a valuable resource for
employees to pursue professional goals and better livelihoods for
themselves, their families and for future generations.
SHRM and the National Association of Independent Colleges and
Universities co-chair the Section 127 Coalition, which brings together
a broad cross-section of nearly 100 organizations representing
employers, labor and higher education, all of which are committed to
preserving and strengthening employer-provided education assistance.
As the voice of all things work, workers, and the workplace, SHRM
and our 300,000+ members impact the lives of more than 115 million
workers and their families. As congressional lawmakers address the
needs of a dynamic workforce and changing economic landscape, SHRM
stands ready to serve as a resource and partner in those efforts.
______
[Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned at 11:49 a.m.]
[all]