US Department of Labor advances partnership with Huntington Ingalls Industries to strengthen skilled-workforce pipeline, support maritime reindustrialization

SAN DIEGO – The U.S. Department of Labor recently advanced a workforce-development partnership with military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries to expand pre-apprenticeship opportunities, strengthen the nation’s maritime workforce and support Trump administration efforts to rebuild America’s industrial base. 

“Strengthening our maritime talent pipeline has a two-fold benefit,” said Acting Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling. “It gives hope to young men and women enrolled in pre-apprenticeship programs while helping restore America’s maritime workforce and reanimating critical domestic supply chains.”

Part of the partnership includes a proposal to leverage the geographic proximity of the San Diego Job Corps Center, overseen by the Employment and Training Administration, to create a maritime-focused Job Corps Center – a site exclusively devoted to providing career and technical education critical to shipbuilding occupations at nearby shipyards.

Jim Loeblein, vice president of customer affairs at Huntington Ingalls, acknowledged the importance of the partnership, saying, “This dialogue demonstrates that both industry and government understand the mission, that supporting jobs in the shipbuilding industry is necessary. With the international threats we face today, we must be the best we can be, which is why we at HII support the work of the Department of Labor and Job Corps.”

Department officials on July 22 met with Huntington Ingalls executives in San Diego to discuss workforce-development opportunities across southern California, including the possibility of folding three other southern California Job Corps Centers into the plans to more quickly build up the pipeline of skilled workers.

Those three additional sites include the Los Angeles, Inland Empire and Long Beach Job Corps Centers with the San Diego location serving as an Advanced Training Transition Hub for program graduates not only from southern California but around the country to receive relocation assistance, complete their training, and begin work in high-wage shipbuilding careers in the area.

The partnership advances two executive orders—namely “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future” and “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance,” which call for expanding Registered Apprenticeship, strengthening career and technical education, and rebuilding our workforce.

Through partnerships with employers, industry, and education providers, the department is working to ensure America’s workforce is prepared to meet the growing need for a skilled workforce that will propel the next generation of domestic manufacturing and maritime innovation.