|
 Printer-Friendly Version
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
JETT*CON
2001
Baltimore, Maryland
July 18, 2001
Thank you, Cam, for that kind introduction. I am so pleased to have
Cam's assistance as my Deputy Secretary. His experience and insights are
essential to our work in improving the lives of every working American.
It's a pleasure to be with all of you at JETT*CON 2001.
I want to thank everyone who has made this such an inspiring conference
this week -- workforce development professionals from throughout our country,
representatives of business and labor, and my colleagues at the Department of
Labor.
By coming together here in Baltimore, you have been able to share ideas,
information, and the best practices than can help all of us - at the state,
local, and federal levels - build more effective workforce development systems
to serve all customers.
Indeed, partnership is not only a cornerstone of the Workforce
Investment Act but is also essential if our workforce development goals are to
be realized.
I understand that we are joined today by representatives from all levels
of government, as well as partners from the private sector.
We all share a common goal: Helping citizens to achieve their hopes and
dreams in the workplace of the 21st century.
And all of us are partners in this pursuit - equally important in
determining the success of this worthy goal.
We at the Department of Labor are not waiting for others to come to us.
We are reaching out across the expanse of the federal government to share our
goal.
We're working with the Department of Education to determining the skills
that today's young people will need to succeed in tomorrow's economy - and
ensure that they get them.
We're working with the Department of Health and Human Services to help
move more families from welfare to work.
And we're developing partnerships with the departments of Commerce and
Transportation to improve our understanding of economic development issues and
public transit alternatives and opportunities to get people to jobs.
At the same time, we need to recognize the important role of the states
in understanding their labor markets, their businesses' workforce needs and
their citizens' service requirements. In building workforce investment systems,
the states can truly be laboratories to test new and better responses to
workforce challenges.
The results are job connections - originating at the local level and
meeting employers' needs for skilled workers.
And this responsibility does not lie soley in the hands of government.
The ingenuity and creativity of the private sector is essential to meeting
America's needs for a skilled workforce.
At our recent Summit on the 21st Century Workforce, I was thrilled to
announce a new partnership with Monster.com to leverage the power of their
internet job bank with the power of the Labor Department's America's Job Bank.
We should seek out more partnerships that draw upon the talent and creativity
of the private sector. I hope some of them will come out of this week's
technology conference.
This morning, I'd like to say a few words about the issues we must
address to build a 21st century workforce, and then I'd like to turn the floor
over to Mark Mauer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, and
Douglas Becker, the head of Sylvan Learning.
The need for a top-quality workforce is a national issue, with
consequences for communities and individuals throughout the country.
In a lot of ways, workforce development is synonymous with economic
development. It's about jobs, productivity, and growth.
But at the same time, even if it's a national issue, the federal
government cannot provide all the answers. Indeed, it should not provide all
the answers.
Last month, at a summit in Washington, DC, President Bush and I
presented our vision of how we can meet the challenges of the 21st century
workforce. Nearly 3,000 leaders from education, business, labor, and government
came together to share ideas.
America needed a wake?up call about its workforce - because the trends
that are impacting it will have huge economic consequences if we don't address
them.
And Washington needed a wake?up call, as well - because the way that
America works has fundamentally changed, yet the way that Washington deals with
workforce issues in many ways has not.
Most of the Labor Department's activities began prior to the advent of
many of the things that define the modern workplace - from personal computers
and the Internet to widespread use of stock options, 401(k)'s, and more
flexible work schedules.
America's workplaces are changing and the Department of Labor, if we are
to be effective instruments of hope and opportunity, needs to change as well.
But improving our work does not mean abandoning what has worked, or what
is most important. We still need to protect workers' safety and health,
retirement security, and equal access to jobs and promotions. And we still need
to help many Americans get the skills they need for good, rewarding jobs.
A responsive, responsible Department needs to be open to new and better
ways to achieve these goals and improve the lives of the American worker.
There are three issues will have an impact on our nation's economic
strength in the decades ahead, and shape the quality of life of America's
working families:
The skills gap;
Profound demographic changes; and
Continuing transformation of the American workplace.
These trends didn't develop overnight - and they won't be addressed
overnight, either.
That is why our perspective must be longer than just the next
appropriations season or the next election. That can be a hard thing to do in
Washington.
But, let's briefly look at the three long-term challenges:
First, the skills gap. Throughout most of our lifetimes, the chief
economic challenge has been unemployment. But that is changing dramatically.
The economy is still producing tens of thousands of service and
technology jobs that go unfilled - even with the recent downturn in the dot?com
sector.
That's because there's a disconnect between many of the new jobs that
are being created and the current skill level of many people in the workforce.
We can see this growing skills gap in our monthly unemployment figures -
which show a steady decline in traditional manufacturing jobs, while the demand
for highly?skilled workers remains relatively strong.
We see it in the "digital divide" between technological "haves" and
"have?nots."
We see it in the earnings gap between college and high?school graduates,
which has grown from a 38 percent gap in 1979 to over 70 percent today.
We also see it in unemployment statistics - as the unemployment rate for
a high?school dropout is four times the rate for college graduates.
As our economy makes the transition into high?skilled, information?based
industries, if our workforce isn't ready, then the "macro" effect will be a
lower productivity and GDP - and that means a lower standard of living than we
are capable of.
But there are other "micro" effects of the skills gap beyond lower
living standards - including the effect on people who work hard in a job for
years, only to lose it and find that the economy has passed them by.
This cuts at the hope that lies at the heart of the American dream - the
belief that honest, hard work will always open doors of opportunity.
The question we must address is: How can we build skills to affirm that
hope?
First and foremost, through education - through educational reforms that
replace a culture of complacency with a culture of challenge.
Our training programs should be venture capital for the 21st century
workforce - offering hope to workers whom the private sector hasn't reached out
to yet.
The second long-term issue we need to address America's demographic
destiny.
Americans today are living longer and spending less of their lives
working. Our population is aging - the baby boomers are nearing retirement. And
at the same time, we're having fewer children than ever before. Our birthrate
has been below the "replacement rate" for a quarter of a century.
The net effect will be an unprecedented labor shortage.
If we fail to respond, the results could be disastrous - including high
labor costs driving up inflation, and shortages of time?intensive services like
personal health care.
In just a few decades, we face a ballooning class of retirees - all
relying on expensive entitlement programs - and a shrinking class of workers
who pay the taxes to fund those programs.
At that point, it won't just be an economic problem, it will be a
political one as well.
The solution is fairly obvious: America - the land of opportunity - will
need to open those doors of opportunity even wider than they are today.
Our growing labor shortage will require us to take a fresh look at
immigration - because the immigrant's hope is closely entwined with America's
need.
In fact, there may be a silver lining to America's labor shortage:
Necessity may make our nation more open to the talents of all our people -
including those who have been left out of the workforce up to now.
We need to push further to make our workplaces free of discrimination on
the basis of race, gender, color, ethnicity, or disability. Our laws say that
employers must do it; and the coming labor shortage means that employers will
need to do it.
Older workers are another source of experienced labor we need to tap
into. Some employers encourage older workers to retire early. But in the next
ten years, the opposite will happen: Employers will need to bend over
backwards, offering flexible work arrangements, to keep seniors on the job
longer.
We need to develop the concept of phased retirement - letting seniors
gradually transition from full?time to part?time work, while giving them
partial access to pension benefits.
Finally, we need to respond to the trends that are changing the American
workplace.
Anyone can tell you that this isn't our parents' economy. Consider these
facts:
The average 32?year?old has already worked for nine different companies
in his or her brief career.
Around 10 million people work away from their corporate office at least
three days a month - twice as many as eight years ago.
And almost half of these corporate nomads have been with their current
employer for two years or less.
We're not just spending less time with each employer. We're also
spending less time at home.
The average mother and father now spend a stunning 22 hours less with
their children each week than their own parents did.
More than 40 percent of all families have two wage?earners working
outside the home.
As people sort out the priorities of financial needs and family life,
they all face the same concerns: A career move that leaves behind health care
coverage… abandoning pension benefits before they are vested…
renegotiating with each new employer the balance between work and home.
Addressing these issues - the skills gap, demographic change, and the
changing workplace - presents significant challenges. But these are challenges
we cannot afford to ignore.
If our nation is to remain competitive, and our people are to continue
to enjoy the fruits of prosperity, we must build and sustain a high-skill
workforce that draws on the talents of a broad and diverse population, and that
is secure that its needs are being met in a changing workplace environment.
As the community of workforce service providers from all levels of
government and the private sector, we must recognize these tremendous
challenges and commit to finding solutions.
This will require that we expand our vision and be open to new
approaches and new ideas. I look forward to future forums where we can do just
that!
Thank you for your commitment to these goals. I look forward to working
with you in the years ahead.
I now would like to turn the floor over to Mark Mauer and Douglas
Becker, who will discuss some of these issues in greater depth.
Thank you very much.
| 
