Senate HELP Committee holds WIA hearing.

Senate HELP Committee Holds Hearing On Workforce Investment Act

On February 24, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on A Stronger Workforce Investment System for a Stronger Economy. The hearing, which featured testimony from leading workforce development experts from around the country, highlighted the growing recognition by key policymakers of the importance of job training in federal job creation and recovery efforts, and in particular the need to strengthen and reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to ensure we have the workforce infrastructure necessary to sustain job growth and enhance our economic competitiveness. Witnesses stressed that a reauthorized WIA should: include capacity to support sector partnerships at the state and local level; better align training and adult education programs to establish career pathways for workers at all skill levels; and include increased funding to ensure that the system can adequately meet growing demand for services.

In his opening remarks, HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) emphasized the connection between WIA reauthorization and federal job creation efforts. Ranking Member Michael Enzi (R-WY) asserted in his opening remarks that while a focus on job creation was necessary, employment gains would be short-lived without access to training, stating: “The jobs that will be created when our economy picks up will be ‘middle-skill’ jobs that require education and training beyond the high school level. Workers must be ready to fill these jobs by quickly acquiring new skills and having ongoing access to quality education and skills training so they can turn those jobs into careers.”

Tony Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, opened the witness testimony by noting that two-thirds of the jobs that will be created between 2008-2018 will require some form of post-secondary training.  Carnevale suggested that the proposed “Partnership for Workforce Innovation” between the Departments of Labor and Education, included as part of President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request, presented an excellent opportunity to begin breaking down program silos.

Reducing barriers between training, adult education, and worker support programs was also a priority for Cheryl Feldman, director of the District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund in Philadelphia (and a member of Nationals Skills Coalition’s Leadership Council.) Feldman noted that due to state budget cuts to workplace literacy programs, her health-care sector partnership has a waiting list of more than 400 applicants, and misalignment between program requirements limits their ability to enroll these individuals in blended literacy and skills training activities. Feldman encouraged the committee to eliminate these barriers, and also called on the committee to include dedicated funding for sector strategies as part of WIA reauthorization.

Robert Templin, President of Northern Virginia Community College, encouraged the committee to “move beyond a preoccupation with short-term entry-level skills training and move toward a workforce development system that encourages training that leads to both employment and a postsecondary credential and provides employment with family-sustaining wages.” To achieve this goal, Templin recommended strengthening pathways to postsecondary credential attainment by supporting linkages between community-based organizations and postsecondary educational institutions, and encouraging collaboration between key workforce stakeholders through sector initiatives.

National Skills Coalition applauds the Senate HELP Committee for its continued efforts around WIA reauthorization, including hosting a series of listening sessions with national stakeholder groups last April and convening a July 2009 hearing with Jane Oates, Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training at the U.S. Department of Labor, and Martha Kanter, Under Secretary of Education at the U.S. Department of Education. The committee has been working closely with the Obama administration on reauthorizing legislation, and it is expected that a bill may be introduced as early as this month. National Skills Coalition looks forward to working with the committee on this vital legislation, and we encourage workforce development advocates to continue to weigh in with policymakers about the importance of strengthening and modernizing our workforce infrastructure to support job growth and economic recovery.