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OPA News Release: [04/14/2005]
Contact Name:
David James or Jane Norris
Phone Number: 202-693-4676
Release Number: 05-674-NAT
U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine. L. Chao Testifies Before Senate HELP Committee on Workforce Investment Act Reforms
WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao testified
today before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
(HELP) on the need to include the Administration's reforms in reauthorization
of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998.
“The President wants to make sure that job training programs are successfully
training people for better jobs,” said Secretary Chao. “WIA Plus will help
more workers find good jobs by making sure that less is spent on the bureaucracy
and more resources are devoted to helping people learn new skills,” Chao
added.
The Administration's reforms would create a flexible, integrated system
which includes:
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Strong state leadership,
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Effective execution at the local level, and
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The ability to customize
solutions to meet the needs of local workers and employers.
President Bush's Job Training Reform Proposal contains these principles
that underlie the proposed reforms:
- Giving state and local communities maximum flexibility to
design a workforce investment system that meets their needs;
- Greater accountability to set increasingly rigorous
annual performance milestones over a period of ten years for every person
who receives federally-funded training in a job;
- Spending more workforce investment system resources on actual
worker training instead of process and bureaucracy;
- Creating a more effective governance structure by enhancing
the role of states and local officials — the workforce investment
system is currently administered with too much micro-management at
the federal level;
- Strengthening the One-Stop Career Center system — these
centers are the foundation of the workforce investment system but funding
for the operation of these centers is uncertain in many local areas,
and
- Enhancing individual choice through Innovation Training Accounts — these
accounts will allow individual workers to create their own customized
training program, using a broad range of public and private training
resources.
The United States has one of the highest growth rates of any industrialized
country, growing at an annualized rate of 4% in 2004 and creating 3.1 million
new jobs since June 2003. The average American worker will hold an average
of 9 jobs between the ages of 18-34. That means learning must be a lifelong
pursuit. Reforming our nation's job training system is essential to providing
workers with opportunities to continually upgrade their skills.
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