Labor Secretary Elaine Chao on Tuesday addresses the general convention of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry at Paris Las Vegas. She said an information-driven economy is creating a market for highly skilled workers. Photo by John Locher.
From construction trades to manufacturing, job formation in America today revolves around skilled positions that demand specialized skills, U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said.
Chao, in Las Vegas Tuesday to address the 37th general convention of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry, said that private-sector companies and the federal government must join to create a labor force with skills sets employers need.
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"Our economy is transforming into a more knowledge-based economy," Chao said. "The jobs of the future are increasingly jobs that have high information content. We need to work with labor and management to ensure the skills that are needed are in fact being trained."
Even before hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005 and left behind entire communities in need of rebuilding, the nation's construction industry was able to hire only 65 percent of the workers it needed, Chao said.
She added that the country's health-care sector will need 3.4 million additional workers in the next decade, including 1 million nurses.
And though jobs in traditional manufacturing are declining worldwide, the subsector of advanced manufacturing -- which entails new technologies for the design, engineering and production of goods -- is adding workers and generating demand for educated employees.
Experts in the construction and manufacturing industries often lament the lack of trade training in high schools. They say an emphasis on funneling students into four-year colleges is eroding the labor pool available to skilled trades.
Chao said the focus on preparing students for college emerged in the early 1990s. However, rather than restoring vocational training in high schools -- "there are concerns about how effective high-school training programs are," she said -- businesses should consider post-high school educational programs, including specialized training institutes, certification institutes and apprenticeship programs.
The Department of Labor has launched an Advancing Apprenticeship Initiative to encourage the development of apprenticeship programs, and $9.5 billion of the agency's $11 billion discretionary budget goes to training programs, Chao said.
Chao also commented on recent Congressional efforts to raise the national minimum wage.
She said the Bush administration supported a July bill that would have raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. The Senate failed to pass the measure, which also would have extended earlier tax breaks.
"The president supports an increase in the minimum wage so long as it does not dampen the creation of new jobs," Chao said. "The Congress had a very good bill."
