American Workforce Development

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairwoman Foxx for yielding and for her leadership in the area of education, workforce development, career and technical education. It is greatly appreciated and a pleasure and honor to work with the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, every Member of this Chamber is familiar with the issue surrounding the skills gap. The American workforce currently faces a shortage of 6 million skilled workers. That number continues to grow at a rate faster than anybody could anticipate. We expected not to hit 6 million job openings until the year 2020, and here we are, 6.5 million jobs open and available that need to be filled here in 2018.

Employers from numerous different fields have weighed in on the issue, and the majority of employers agree that vacant positions remain unfilled because candidates lack many of the skills that they need for a given job.

While soft skills, such as communications, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking are important for many jobs requiring daily interaction and working as part of a team, hard skills, which are learned in a classroom or a skills-based course, have significantly contributed to the skills gap.

As a senior member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce as well as co-chair of the Career and Technical Education Caucus, I believe that by modernizing the current Federal law and investing in skills-based education programs, we can begin to narrow the skills gap, put people back to work, and continue to grow this economy.

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act has not been updated in more than a decade. The law no longer reflects the realities and challenges facing students and workers today. Current policies restrict the ability of State leaders to invest Federal resources and prioritize economic growth and local needs. It fails them in having the flexibility to be able to react to immediate workforce needs.

In an effort to close the skills gap, my colleague Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and I introduced H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act.

H.R. 2353 makes impactful changes to the law by giving authority back to the State and local leaders, who have a thorough understanding of the regional workforce; aligning career and technical education programs with high-skilled, lucrative, and in-demand jobs; and increasing transparency and accountability, while also assessing the success of skills-based education programs; and limiting the Department of Education's role in the CTE programs, empowering the State and the local leaders.

Now, while this bipartisan legislation passed the House unanimously last year and still awaits action in the Senate, in a time when critical industries have vacant jobs but not enough qualified workers to fill them, it is imperative that we work to get this bill signed into law for the prosperity of our economy and for the future of our workforce.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for the opportunity to weigh in on this important topic.

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