POLITICO: NSC and BLU Convene Industry Recovery Panels

National Skills Coalition (NSC) and Business Leaders United for Workforce Partnerships (BLU) are convening Industry Recovery Panels to ensure federal recovery initiatives include investments in workforce training and supports to help workers and businesses adapt to structural shifts in their industries.

Different industries have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways. The goal of the industry recovery panels is to ensure that industry leaders are helping to shape public investments in workforce training and support services that workers and businesses need to adapt to the structural shifts within their industries.

“We want to ensure that federal recovery efforts support the businesses and workers most impacted by the pandemic, particularly workers of color, women, and workers with a high school degree or less,” NSC CEO Andy Van Kleunen told POLITICO. “We know that skills training alone will not ensure an inclusive recovery, but we also know that it must be part of our nation’s federal policy response. If we want those policies to succeed, industry leaders must help shape them.”

Consistent with our Inclusive Economic Recovery framework, the Industry Recovery Panels will help address:

• The disproportionate impact of the economic crisis on workers of color, immigrants, and workers with a high school diploma or less;
• The essential role of businesses who hire locally and invest in their people but need policymakers to be their partner;
• And the moral and economic imperative to dismantle structural racism within workforce education and training.

Skills training alone will not ensure an inclusive recovery, but it must be part of our nation’s federal policy response.