Response to the State of the Union.

Washington, DC: National Skills Coalition Executive Director Andy Van Kleunen issued the following statement after President Obama’s State of the Union Address.

Last night, the President affirmed his investment strategies to put more Americans into jobs: freeing up credit for investments in small businesses; investments in our transportation and energy infrastructures; and investments in people, to make sure America’s workers have the skills for these new jobs in a restructuring economy.

The President’s skills agenda as articulated last night gives us great hope, but it also raises concerns about specific policies to be debated in coming weeks. The President explained that his budget will propose new funding to improve our kids’ schools, and to make it easier for young people to go to college. But the current crisis requires an additional education strategy for the tens of millions of men and women in this country who are out of work or facing layoffs, and in need of new skills to secure a good job.

There are employers, even during this recession, who cannot find workers with the right skills. Further, there are employers willing to hire people without the exact skills match if there are resources to train new hires on-the-job before business starts to pick up. Business tax incentives, such as those called for by the President last night, should spur hiring by those firms who have already found the skilled workers they need. But for many other businesses who can’t find workers with the right skills, we need a different strategy.

To that end, we applaud the President’s call for new “career pathways” strategies at our community colleges, so more Americans can translate post-secondary education into an immediate job. But those pathways will require the Senate to enact legislation that supports the full range of courses that workers typically take, and the necessary industry partnerships between colleges, employers and other stakeholders. We also need a Senate Jobs Bill that includes on-the-job training, developed with local industries, as a tool to close the unemployment gap. And while we applaud the President’s call for expanded funding for K-12 and higher education reforms, we question if his proposed freeze on domestic spending will make it impossible to expand technical training and basic literacy education for tens of millions of America’s workers who otherwise may not meaningfully participate in this recovery.

President Obama, more than any other President in recent memory, has articulated a vision for “investing in people” that could change how we think about education in this country. We look forward to working with him to develop the policies and investment priorities necessary to put that vision into effect for all of America’s workers and industries.