American Workforce Policy Advisory Board Meeting at The White House. Part 1

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Transcript

For those of you who have not yet met her, Brooke, do would you like to introduce yourself? Is as the newest member of the advisory committee, Ivanka Trump. Thank you so much. My name is Brooke Rollins. Everyone, I have the amazing honor to serve this president. The first really two years I was here is director of the Office of American Innovation. So watched the work of Ivanka and all of you with great just inspiration, amazement everything that you all are doing under Ivanka and and Secretary Ross is leadership. And I just I guess about a month and 1/2 ago took over the domestic Policy Council. So one of the pieces of that was joining your council, so I didn’t ever think I would get to be sitting with all of you. But I am very grateful an honor to be here. And Ivanka really looking forward to the meeting. Thank you. Well, thank you, Brooke. And and we’re excited to have you in this new role. Continuing your great work and good afternoon to everyone. I’m excited to welcome you back to the White House for the sixth meeting of the Workforce Policy Advisory. board. In just over a year, this board has has, you know and have joined us, met across the country and brought forth a series of recommendations to ensure all Americans are prepared for the jobs of today and tomorrow. For this meeting, I thought it best to bring the advisory board alongside leaders from federal government that sit on the National Council for the American Worker and who are responsible for implementing your great recommendations. The National Council is excited to report on our progress. We have begun implementing one of the most notable alternative education pathways with proven results expanding apprenticeships in new and emerging fields so that workers can learn while they earn. There are now more than 750,000 new apprentices since the administration took office and the creation of the industry recognized apprenticeship program will dramatically expand thes opportunities for more Americans in the future, we have also heated your suggestion and expanded our data collection to fill a major gap that existed on labor demand, hires and separations. Prior to this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics could only provide data on a national level today due to this advisory board’s recommendation, leaders in every states and local officials in 18 major metropolitan areas will have a much clearer picture off their local job vacancies and, importantly, the skills needed to fill those jobs. I’m sure our governors will be happy to hear that. Thank you, Governor Reynolds and Governor Holcomb. For for that suggestion, we have all heard time and time again, how your companies and others across the country are adopting a modernized recruitment and hiring process today. Weird. Also taking steps as the nation’s largest employer. To lead by example, the president will shortly be signing an executive order directing federal agencies to start hiring based on skills and competency rather than outdated degree requirements. Both the board and council have continued to ensure that no matter the economic circumstances, American workers are put first. Over the course of the past year, we have seen the lowest unemployment rates ever recorded, including for African Americans, Hispanics, individuals with disabilities and our veterans. And we have seen significant increases in Labour force participation, including for those who have long been on the sidelines coming back into the workforce in record numbers. But within a few short weeks, our country experienced rapid economic and social changes brought about by the global covert 19 pandemic. We were challenged to rethink how we live our day to day lives. Despite these new realities, one thing has remained constant. This administration and the members of this advisory board have thought and will continue to fight for American workers and families. Prior to the pandemic, the adviser board laid out a bold agenda focused on how best to prepare American workers for the changing nature of work and the future of automation. Through the advisory board, we have addressed these issues and recommended changes. And now Cove in 19 has brought forth a critical urgency to implementation of a set of action laid out in last month’s call to action for lawmakers, businesses and educators alike. The group of leaders here today believes in providing Americans with multiple pathways to education and career success. This includes short term credentials, associates degrees on the job training, bachelor’s and master’s programs. And as I had mentioned earlier apprenticeships, we believe in both increasing the availability of high quality and transparent data to show the private sector return on investment in workforce development and the ability for individuals to make informed choices about their educations in their careers. We believe in modernizing the way in which employers recruit, hire and train their employees so they can attack, attract and retain workers with the skills needed to fill specific jobs and ensure that Americans with those skills are no longer overlooked. We firmly believe that all employers must invest in their workers through education and training, and that it’s not just the right thing to Dio. But it’s good smart business. As we continue to bring manufacturing jobs back to our nation from the shores of California to the coast of Maine, we must ensure hardworking Americans are prepared to fill those jobs. This national council, an advisory board, has taken critical strides to increase the agility of our workforce development system. But we have much more to dio. That is why I’m pleased today to announce that the president will sign an executive order continuing the National Council for the American Worker and American and Workforce Advisory Board. I want to thank each of you for your service and your commitment to the cause of the American people. There’s a lot of hardship right now, and a lot of uncertainty, and this work takes on more meaning than ever before. I would now like to turn it over to my co chair, secretary, Ross, to say a few opening words of remarks. Thank you, Thank you for your visionary leadership of both the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board and the National Council of the American Worker. Thank you also for bringing both groups together here today. Their presence here at the White House is a testimony to their dedication to the American workforce. We must also commend the advisory board for calling an extraordinary meeting in mid May to address the abrupt changes and tremendous challenges facing American workers due to the pandemic today, the U. S economy is emerging from the greatest public health crisis in a century. I’ve been traveling the country over the past month, visiting companies and talking to executives, workers, trade groups and community leaders. Everywhere I go, there is optimism about the U. S. Economy in its near and longer term prospects. We thankfully see this reflected in recent economic indicators. You have heard about a lot of them, but the one data point I would highlight is the amount of money, Americans are saving the amount of dry powder they have. This morning, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Commerce Department reported that the personal savings rate was 23.2% in May, up from 8.4% in February prior to the pandemic. And that compares with the rand 3% in 2009 during the last crisis. So the consumer is in far better shape than ever before. In fact, last month Americans save $4.1 trillion up from 1.4 trillion in February. Federal Reserve also reported last Friday the U. S bank deposits have increased by 2.1 trillion since the lockdowns from 13.4 in February 2 15.5 as of June 10th. So unlike in 8 4009 our financial system is sound and his enterprises reopen, Americans will be pumping money back into local economies and furloughed workers will be hired. Since producing it’s called Toe Action on investing in American Workers Toe expedite the economic recovery, the advisory boards four working groups have come together multiple times to expand on those initial recommendations. You’ve outlined the means required to expedite American workers, return to employment and upward mobility by investing in career pathways and implementing skill based hiring practices. Second, remove obstacles in American education and training to accelerate re Skilling and facilitate innovation in the workforce development. And you have recommended that we build the technological infrastructure necessary for the future of work. Today L. A Working group co chairs will share how they have expanded on that call to action. We will discuss recommendations to expand access to broadband and encourage more employer training investments. We will also discuss how the advisory boards recommendations are sparing action in the federal government and the private sector. Secretary Scalia, O. N. B. Acting Director Void and Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Beach will share their work on implementing the advisory boards recommendations, along with requirements in the president’s original executive order establishing the council. We also will receive updates on the private sector led workforce Readiness campaign and on interoperable learning record pilots again, your effort to be here demonstrates an abiding support of American workers on their behalf. I thank you a bunker. Thank you, Secretary Ross and following those great opening remarks, I think we’ll just dive right in. So, Ginny Rometty, if you could give us an update on theme, multiple Pathways campaign that you have been working so diligently on with your working group, that would be so, Thank you. And I think is everyone knows we’ve been updating our call to action in the campaign for all of the obvious reasons we discuss because last time the part that did not change was the focus on pathways and this idea that we would hire for skills first. But you might remember the campaign was first called new rules, but that was for a different point in time. And so I’m happy to tell everyone that we’re in the final days now that we’ve been re fashioning it and really focusing it to recognize the moment on opportunity and access for everyone. So the new theme is find something new and it is targeted for those who are out of work, those who have to re skill and then as well those who are just looking for a new pathway, which is really the original point we were on. And so I think it is more relevant than ever. It does hit. I think three. New reality is you. Both both adviser Trump and as well as Secretary Ross, described the new reality for everyone. And I hope what you’ll see. It’s positive, inspiring, hopeful. But yet it’s realistic. And that was really the point. So we now feature not that we didn’t feature real people before. These are real people with real stories, having moved to real new, different jobs and all the different pathways that Ivanka just outlined and what we had. And I must say among you saw this early on. There’s just low awareness for all these pathways that are out there, and this is why. Originally you said stay with the campaign right as we talked about it. So, um so the new campaign. As I said, Find something new. It is going to focus on the kind of jobs where there are job openings and let me give you an example of what I meant by it. Highlights Reel people. We’ve now interviewed dozens of people riel life stories, a janitor, a retail person who now is working in technology as an example, retrained ah person who at 17 went into the army. Two tours of duty now working. It happened to be technology. A fitness instructor. Social distancing makes that hard now doing welding. So we really did find and I think appeal to all different kinds. And this was a partnership that the ad council I’ve told you about has contributed their time to its approximately 30 million of media. They’ll be doing IBM and Apple. Let it along, then with contributions from our co members here. So we’re positioned and ready to go with print, television, digital social about middle of July. We did then in this time say it’s not enough to just do a campaign in which you’ll you can look later. It’s in your books. There has to be a call the action about what to do. So, um, my colleagues and IBM have beaver it away at building this website, which we’ve now probably rebuilt three times to be of the moment. And what the website does is it links to 180 now re sources and growing. It starts with describing 12 rising jobs, careers, jobs you could have. We’ve added things like contact tracer as an example of the moment. Then there’s a section on find your pathway. And this is to the point. We’re I think we’re now at 80 different programs and paths you can take to get a certification, some kind of credential toe one of these jobs. And then after it takes you down that path, it allows you to say What are other resource is that you have need to help you. Maybe it’s a resume. Maybe it’s child care links toe and there’s another 60 Resource is to go there, and we then tested it with over 300 unemployed people. And, to be sure, our ratings air 80 90% in, you know you might or might not be surprised. The number one thing people appreciated is that it’s all about real people in about real situations. So, Mark, I commend you for having Gladys. You’ve been steadfast in this and leading the administration’s efforts. And so thank you. You did have the idea about staying focused on a campaign, and I think it turned out to be more right than ever in this moment. And eso we’re ready to go middle of July, all the media plus website of action and where to how to get ready and get your jobs. And if I could close on just two other quick points, One is that I wanted make a comment on policy, if I might, cause there’s been two pieces of progress. Obviously, what Ivanka just mentioned is the skills First Executive order. I know IBM supports it, as does our committee that worked on this. Um and I just want to be sure. I think it’s a critical step for expanding opportunity for so many Americans. Um, the second thing that Secretary DeVos is here that I wanted to commend the Department of Education on is that it was just last week the Workforce Preparation Grant program Party Cares Act, which is right in the bull’s eye of what we’re talking about toe implement short term education and training for people. So thank you for doing that and in right the moment. So we often talked about making policy change in this group, and we thought it would be on a longer term horizon. These of Abbasi come on a nice short term horizon for the moment. And I’ll just close my opening comments with my own reflection from IBM and that you’ve heard me. Those of you Maybe you’ve heard me like too much for a long time. Talk about this idea of new collar jobs, not blue, not white given opportunity to people without four year degrees. And my colleagues were going to an update on their progress. But I just thought I would share my own skills. First experience prioritizing that over degrees it was. 15% of our hiring in the United States last year were skills first hires, which I think is that it would not have happened. And, of course, there from the most social, economic, distressed areas and people. And so that has been our It’s been excellent our experience with it. Our apprenticeship program, which is a formal earn while you learn, grew twice as fast as we thought, and we’re up to 500 a year and then, as you know, a public private partnership model on education. The six year high schools we now are up to 220 schools of the pipeline of almost 200,000 students. So I believe collectively together, I hope, find something new, just keeps its an umbrella for all of us to put these efforts underneath. And so, um, it’s a good moment to have given an update. We’re ready to rock and roll, as they say. So if I can just turn over to my colleagues, is that okay to make some? Oh yeah, we do have some of the new advertising. It’s in your book. It’s up on the charts. I just It’s not the live stuff yet. You’ll see that soon, but it just gives you that feeling. The new corner office, working in energy, solar, you know, and it’s meant to be aspirational. And then the places that call the action to the website, which we’ve simplified it tremendously and they all tell us they can use it. So I’m hopeful this really drives a result. It’s terrific, and, um, and you and Tim and the Apple team and your whole team have just been phenomenal in terms of driving this, the creative, the content, the testing of its efficacy. So the whole advisory council really thanks you and I do think one of the things we kept on hearing and I visited several of your great programs across the country, specifically the P Tech programs, was that there’s just as you note, a lack of awareness around the options that exists and the multiple pathways to career success into acquiring skills for jobs that are in demand. Post pandemic. But there are some industries that are hiring today during this current crisis is well, so. So I think having the call to action to actually visit the website and explore some of those options is is great regardless of age range, and and you are very sensitive and developing it that it can be for the student but also for the mid to late career workers. We’re quite excited for this. Thank you, Jenna. Yes? Can I turn to my colleagues? Right? Because, um, IBM while I have our programs, my other colleagues had been very successful with chairs. And so if I could start with Maryland Houston, chairman of Lockheed Martin, to start with her experience Thank you, Jenny and Secretary Ross Goodman. Thank you very much for the opportunity to tell you a little bit about what we’re doing toward the call to action that was outlined for us. And I’ll just talk about a few things that we’ve done in the last few months. In three areas, one is on what we’re doing in the hiring and recruiting area, what we’re doing to build the stem pipeline. And then, lastly, we’re doing on technical skills and skills. Uh, growth. First of all, on on the side of recruiting and hiring, we did kick off something from new approaches that we’re doing for veterans and military spouses. In April, we rolled out and launched are hiring pathways for veterans, and it’s more of an accelerated pathways for veterans, particularly those that were most impacted by the high unemployment associated with the pandemic. And I can tell you that as you talk about companies that are hiring, we are hiring. Since March 19th we’ve hired over 8000 people, and we expect a higher close to 12,000 people this year. So we continue to hire were an essential service. That and business that’s worked all throughout the pandemic. And we have, and we’re continuing to need additional workers. So this thes pathways for veterans is an area that’s very important. The second area that I wanted to touch on is building the stem pipeline were continuing a lot of our programs and initiatives we have in that arena. This is where we’re focusing on students that may not have considered a stem career or stem opportunity. And we’ve got a lot of programs and initiatives just to create that inspiration for them so they’ll pursue STEM, and through that, many of them would not have considered it all. And it would very much change their lives. Is a lot of those who are underrepresented who gives them a new opportunity. And then the last Syria that I wanted to touch on is our technical in skills building. And in January we launched a Z, part of our pledge to the worker to the American worker commitment that we made. We launched a five year, $5 million vocational scholarship program, and it’s the first of the kind in the aerospace and defense industry. And as of june 16th we awarded a 150 individual scholarships of $6600 of scholarship money to help cover vocational training cost for individuals so that they could continue. Uh, there there opportunities in these critical areas and these air for people who don’t need they don’t need a, you know, a four year degree or anything like that. They just This is an opportunity for them to have a scholarship, to go forward through that for training to cover the training cost. We also recognize that during the pandemic, a lot of the things that we had going we’re gonna move to virtual training. So we funded a lot of additional equipment to allow that that we didn’t lose any time on the apprenticeships and other things that we support by providing some additional funding for virtual training. So we’re very way very much appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this important body and what we’re doing for the American worker. And these are just a few of the things that we’re doing across that arena at Lockheed Martin. Thank you so much. And next we’ll turn it over to Scott from Western Governors University, who’s been leading alongside Governor Holcomb, the working group on data transparency. So you wouldn’t mind kicking us off Scott, that great? Thank you so much, Ivanka. It’s truly a pleasure to be back with all of you. Um, as you well know, we’ve been talking for a long time about the interoperable learning record, and I think it’s also true that in an era where our digital can activity is more vibrant and more need. And now it is a prerequisite to accessing higher education and also many of the job opportunities that are out there. And so this digital divide that we talked about as part that called action. It is highlighted because it limits the development of our workforce and amplifies inequality. And so thank you, Ivanka, for outlining a path forward to bridge this digital divide. Um, I also want to move to our next agenda item related toe learner records. And I want to first recognize the work of this board as well as that. The dedication envision, particularly of Ivanka and Secretary Ross, is was Chris Liddell and all of your respective staffs. The tireless and insightful work of the U. S. Chambers also noted on those who have spearheaded pilot projects, including Walmart and our friends, IBM, Salesforce and Workday as well. This group is focused on policy agenda designed to give every person in this country a pathway to opportunity and has been visionary in its embrace of the underlying technology needed to enable that future with with this concept of an open and a transparent and a individually owned record of skills and competencies. This group has taken an idea, one that honestly has the potential to change the future of learning and work and has studied it, collaborated on it, invested in it and ultimately is now working to make that a reality. As you well know, great ideas also don’t come out of the box proven and fully formed on, and they don’t also come out of the box with the name we have thus far referred to this particular transformative idea as the I. L. R. Go ahead and try to say that three times fast the interoperable learning record. We recognize that this is a mouthful when we set this group and its partners have considered a range of other nomenclature is. And based on that press process, we will now be using the term learning an employment record, which I think is a much more descriptive and more accurate term of it. So the learning and employment record or L E. R. We believe that this name is intuitive. It’s also pronounceable, digestible, understandable, and it can become part of the American lexicon of education, work and job searching and hiring. What is an l L e r. For those who are new to this conversation into the work, I just let me take a moment if we could, to reflect on why this technology is so essential to opening the pathways for opportunity for every American. The purpose of the L E. R is to create transparency for every individual s so that they can articulate their skills and capabilities to both current and potential employers, regardless of whether they learn those skills on the job or at an institution of higher education or, in the military order, an apprenticeship. The record is owned by the individual, meaning that it follows them through their educational experiences and their employment and their entrepreneurial journey. It is a lifelong record. This gives those individuals added resilience in times of turmoil, disruption and changing circumstances. And, for instance, we know that in normal times, 43% of college students transferred during the course of their college careers, 43% and those students will lose on average, 40% of their credits. As we transition to L ers, nothing will be lost. An individual skills and competencies belong to them and are universally and transparently recognizable by any institution or employer. So the L ER opens the door to a labor market that is denominated by skills open to every individual and supported by an aligned, dynamic and relevant education system. If skills of the currency of the future, the L. E. R is the wallet. This technology is how we enable the highly competitive workforce of the future. It’s how we unleash and showcase the potential of every American and how we transform the world of education and training and really, truly reinvent the talent supply chain. The truth is, the innovators have been working on developing and implementing technology for a skills denominated future since the 19 seventies. This is not easy work. As you might imagine, there are significant hurdles to overcome to achieve widespread adoption, and the strides have been taken over the past year by this group are nothing but historically unprecedented so that acceleration of innovation collaboration have been made possible. Truly buy Ivanka’s leadership, but your commitment, dedication to this vision, and I want to take a moment to recognize that you truly assembled incredible team of leaders of employers, of education, institutions and ultimate, you’ve pushed us toward action. So we now, as a result of your leadership, have l er projects in motion that illustrate the viability of these ideas. So ultimately, every work in America will be the beneficiary of this effort. If I can take a moment now to introduce, if you will, some of these pilots and I’ll be briefing that and also Jenny, I think some of that will come back to you to let you talk about that. So we’re humbled to be part of this work. W is partnering in many of the pilots or several of the pilots they’re taking place. And the incredible power we and others have witnessed this part of these pilots is the interoperability between the various block chains being developed. So I will provide an update on WG is work and involvement in two of these pilots. And then we’ll hear from Jenny and IBM, who are leading Anneli, our pilot, to better match learners with careers and cybersecurity. So we’ve been a believer in this skills based future work, and everything we do is designed with students in mind. In addition to providing a workforce line competency based education, we’ve also made a significant investment in mapping the skills that drive those competencies. That has prepared us to support a partnership with Salesforce on their pilot, who will be opening a skills library to allow dignity Health with nearly 60,000 employees at 300 care sites in the western United States to view validated achievement in credentials for their nursing candidates. Where else is supporting the WalMart lead pilot to prove out the interoperability of the learning and employment record and through Work Day were first pushing verified credential data toe walmart so that WalMart is able for the very first time to have transparency into the skills of its massive workforce. Once that element of our work is complete will reverse the process, meaning that we will be pushing badges that represent the skills, skills data verified by Wal Mart over to the WG you system. This is example where those skills and competencies developed and work can also translate back into educational pathways, and that pilot demonstrates the potential ken activity ultimately between academic institutions and employers. So it’s truly an honor to participate in this work, and I want to extend our gratitude to Doug as well as mark for inviting us to play enrolls, supporting these background projects. And last but not least, I want someone express our sincere gratitude to Ginny and the team at IBM for inviting us to collaborate with you to prevent how L ers can also support learners and mapping out a pathway to a career. So I’ll turn the floor over at this time to either back to a banker or to Ginny wherever you want to go. I think you did a wonderful job, so I would only add, I think I You just coined we new skills of is the currency of the future. But I love it that the L E. R is the wallet. So perfectly said. And I would only add that the pilot we’re doing is based on Blockchain Technologies, a perfect application of Blockchain technology for cybersecurity. And it proves the portability between the employer, the individual and the academic. Uh, what multiple academic sites, obviously, And, uh, I would just say so far, so good. And it’s also a great one. Maybe we had a neo on skills first, maybe then to be a great one for the federal government to adopt this L. E. R. Is being the world’s largest employer country’s largest employer, actually, and we’ll see how our pilots go. I think that’s a great segue. You have to rush who can share with us a little bit about the incredibly exciting Eo that the president will be signing shortly. And thank you all for the hard work on this. These pilots will ultimately be rolled up and something that we hope to replicate on a much broader and larger scale once we’ve proven track record and success. And I think everyone around this table shares my excitement for how transformative this could be in terms of creating transparency for people deciding on what education path to take or on an education path about where the jobs exist on Ben. Also, for employers to recruit that talent seamlessly. So so really great work. And thank you both very much. And and Governor Holcomb, thank you for your terrific work on this group as well. So, before we turn it over to to rest, do you have anything bad? Well, just I will be brief. Thank you. Thank you. Secretary Ross, Everyone for dedication. This is gonna make a big difference and you use the word of Uncle Transformational and we’re seeing it play out before us right now. And the urgency has never been The urgency of now, as Dr King mentioned decades ago is is squarely upon us and the work that we’re doing here, I’m just excited and encouraged that we’re getting to the action part of the endeavor. And our committee has been We’ve met multiple times since that since the May meeting. Um, and if you will broaden our focus to take in a couple areas one making sure that were in terms of action, making sure that we’re laying that groundwork for all the technological advancements that need to occur and in terms of infrastructure and then continuing our engagement and focus regarding the learning records. And I cant tell you, Scott, how pleased I am that we’ve changed the name way. Talked a lot about that, but for for only us to have understood what it meant would have been a slow start out of the gate. So, uh, but, you know, this pandemic has brought this really into focus about how much we have to get done and who will potentially get left behind on DSO speed to market is critically, critically important. We focused in on five key areas. I’m just very quickly. We wanted to make sure that we’re advancing action items that will apply to all, um obviously again, epidemic is the pandemic has just vividly revealed various disparities. They were there prior there, There. Now what we don’t want to see is that gap widening, um, in the months and years ahead. And so increasing access to educational and and employment opportunities for Americans is rightly number one. That’s both in rural and urban again. Secretary DeVos, Thank you for your partnership as well on making sure in our school, corporations were not flying over urban or rural or suburban that were actually connecting to all. Secondly, we focused on all the coordination that’s a must and all the opportunities to empower government sectors, making sure that it’s a truly a local state, federal tribal, that cooperation is in place and working not just waiting on one another, but those It’s an orchestra that’s being conducted that has to do with the regulatory environment. So for the for federal partners, making sure that we can do certain things to get to the market critically important for the States like Kim and I from Iowa and Indiana. Um, we’re we’re bringing all of our resources to bear Aziz Well, in Indiana, just as an example, we took a $1,000,000,000 said, We’re gonna have a next level connections program that had a lot more to do than just roads. It had to do a trails. It had to do with airports, water, ports. It had to do with broadband Internet connectivity and in a state like Indian, and I’m sure I was about the same that were 83% farmer forest terrain. And so expanding that field into our rural areas really explains our market of opportunity. And and so devoting those dollars and then having partners at the federal level again and at the local level, critically important, we just rolled out the first round of are We took $100 million of that 1,000,000,000 said, This is going to go toe broadband Internet access, not just awareness that word has been used two or three times awareness access affordability, all critically important to the consumer. Um, our first round we devoted state dollars of that 100 million, 20 little over 28 million. But we leverage that with provider dollars as well. We just rolled out that went into 18 different counties and of our 92 we just rolled out. The second round will have more to say about that later, but this will dwarf that 28 million and will be probably triple. We’ll be starting to knock on that $100 million investment in a very quick period of time. But to think what we can do when were all aligned when all the stars were aligned, Um, it’s just gonna be amazing. Third, not only are we seeking partnerships, and I just alluded to it with local levels of government and branches of government, for that matter were also seeking Teoh cultivate partnerships with the private sector. Obviously, this is how we get there fast, and that’s exactly what we did with our program. We built our program understanding that the private sector and the government sectors coming together could get us there the quickest Fourth, we focused on the ability to develop and then disseminate accurate data, so data rules, but accurate data is what you want to be Oh, not just transparent about, but all looking at the same data that’s accurate. And so that comes full circle back to that access, affordability and awareness when you’re making investments. We were very proud were a triple A state, but I always talk about That’s not just a credit rating that also has to do with access and affordability and awareness and then lastly, expanding that technological infrastructure right now, whether that’s wired or wireless, we gotta do we gotta do both, and we got to do it now and then. We have to have an eye on the future so we can’t be paralyzed by, Well, what’s gonna be next? We gotta be acting now, connecting people now. And so that’s kind of the again that urgency of now, but coming all these last few months has really pushed it, pushed it forward. So those are the five principles that are guiding are not just conversations, but going from the why the conversational part of it to the how and the action Um, part of it. So I say all that to ask, um, Ivanka, if we could ask the full board to approve the digital infrastructure principles that we’ve that I’m just gonna thank you. So for anyone Object. Okay, good. Okay. You have a great great work on those principles. And, um, I know you’ve been reaching out to all of the members and getting real time updates and feedback. Eso really just terrific work. And it was very inclusive of everyone’s ideas and recommendations that we appreciate your your thoroughness in this exercise. I’d like Teoh turn it back now. Teoh. Secretary Scalia for a minute to talk about apprenticeships. Since it’s been mentioned numerous times and some of the new programs this administration has initiated Teoh expand the number of apprenticeships that and apprentices that exists in America today. So, Secretary, if you would like to take the floor now that terrific. Thank you, Ivanka. Thank you for your support of the work we do at the Labor Department. We’ve obviously had a very challenging a few months for the American people, including American workers. This this group knows in February we were at a 3.5% unemployment, which tied a 50 year low, had record job creation to and but in a few months since then we’ve had many millions of Americans put out of work because of the measures taken, responded Virus. We are coming out of that. We turned a corner in May. Secretary Ross touched on it a little bit. As many of you know, we’ve learned that in May we added 2.5 1,000,000 jobs back to the economy. Predictions had been that we would lose 7.5. We added 2.5. And that’s just through mid May, when reopening was really just beginning. We know we’ve added many, many more jobs since then. We’ll put out our but next job report a to the end of next week. But we’ve we’ve made progress, will continue to do that as long as we continue to reopen safely. But we also are mindful that there are going to be more workers to who need to be retrained, develop new skills to go into new jobs. Our economy continues to move and as we come out of this challenge that we’ve had, fortunately from the very early days of the president’s administration, there has been great focus on workforce development and training that’s been reflected in the Council of the American Worker on the advisory board. Such a distinguished group of people that’s participated in this suffered. And also early on there was a task force on apprenticeship expansion, which the president created by Executive Order. And that group recommended quote a streamlined industry led an employer driven apprenticeship program that develops and recognizes high quality, competency based apprenticeships. End quote. That was their recommendation, and I’m pleased to say that that is something that we’ve now put in place to rule that we adopted in early March concerning what we call industry recognized apprenticeship programs in the concept years who sort of threefold first on this is something became so evident to all of us, particularly last few years. Businesses are so effective in helping with training because they understand where the needs are and where they will be. Second apprenticeships particularly, are especially good model for driving that because where there’s an apprenticeship, there’s a job and there’s an expectation of a future job, which is one of the reasons apprenticeships air so valuable. We also recognize, third, that the registered apprenticeship program has many strengths, but it’s not always suited to expansion in industries where apprenticeships have been less established, but where we’re seeing a lot of job growth, like healthcare, like cybersecurity like advanced manufacturing. And so the concept of this rule, the Iraq rule, which we adopted in March, was to promote those apprenticeships. And a center of it is what we call these standards recognition entities there really accrediting bodies. We recognize the SRE. The SRE, in turn, can recognize specific companies, apprenticeship programs and confer recognition on them that this is a good, respected, recognized apprenticeship program that is training good workers for that company. But for others as well. So we’ve begun receiving applications to become S Ari’s this congee CUNY colleges. It could be trade associations. It can be leading businesses say, in the aerospace or computer technology area. Um, who then and I’ve seen it myself cos helping other companies develop apprenticeship programs. They can do that as an S R E and in that way promote apprenticeships throughout our economy. So we have material on how to become a necessary on our website. It’s www dot apprenticeship dot gov. Backslash I wrap, I believe, and of course, were available. We really welcome the support of this group and other companies and trade associations, labour unions, community colleges promoting this alternative apprenticeship model, which we think will go so far in recognizing programs that already exist and a swell encouraging mawr, you know, just to wrap up. There were so many great ideas being incubated of last through years through groups like this, and we’ve now been presented a once in a lifetime opportunity, put them to work. So I think all of you for the extraordinary work you’ve done over these last couple of years and really welcome your support and look forward to our collaboration going forward. Thank you. Thank you so much, Secretary. And this really builds upon the feedback we heard from people across the country about wanting portable stackable credentials that match the in demand jobs. And hopefully we can start to really build out ecosystems of apprenticeships in industries where they didn’t exist prior. So So thank you for your passion for this and your leadership on it. And with that, I’d like to turn to Scott Sanders. Theo, executive director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies who has been leading are modernizing candidate recruitment working group. So, Scott, if you’d like Teoh, you’d like to take it away and share with us. What? What your group has has been working. And after we go through all the different groups, I’d love to open it up two questions and comments and get feedback from from everyone at the table. Thank you, Scott. Thank you. Have a good afternoon. And thank you. Secretary Ross. An adviser Trump for your leadership on behalf of our co chairs, Johnnie Taylor with Sherm and out Kelly with Visa, I’m happy to provide an update on the ongoing efforts of our working group A. Prior to the pandemic, this working group had prepared a report that would help employers tackle the skills gap by modernizing how they recruit, select and trained talent to fill critical skills gaps within within their own workforces. Today, I’m gonna provide an update of that report. And in tab six of your board book, you can follow along Nice. Nice report with the understanding that this is an evolving document that will be refined to be as effective and possible that proactively addressing the short and long term needs of businesses during the post pandemic recovery, the current iteration of leading practices and modernizing candidate recruitment, hiring and training. It includes the collection of best practices featuring a series of illustrative cases from industry leaders, organizations and HR experts who have utilized modern practices to attract, hire and train their workforces. Some practices employers are adopting, including developing and providing customized training opportunities for employees so they could maximize the time and effort spent learning and training to gain skills that are most applicable to them. Personalized training formats, such as in house training, credentialing degree programs and job rotation, offers employees the flexibility to learn when and how it is most suitable for them. Companies are utilizing metrics in order to evaluate the effectiveness of any organisational intervention for recruitment, hiring and training. By leveraging data and analytics, companies can produce concrete evidence on return on investment as well as identify areas for improvement. Companies and education providers air pardoning together to communicate and share information on the desired competencies and qualifications needed for students, candidates and employees to stay current and inform people in irrelevant and applied methods that best prepare Americans for future drop job opportunities. Each of these practices provide concrete and reparable examples oven issues that organizations are using to maximize talent and meet their skill needs. Practices were derived from board members like Visa, who promote employment of untapped talent, the U. S Chamber, who encourage skills identification, and J. P. Morgan Chase, who hired the formerly incarcerated. The goal. This report is to identify and promote those best practices for expanding and making employment opportunities more equitable through the recruitment hiring process. In addition, we view this report as a resource to help expedite America’s economic recovery post pandemic by encouraging innovative practices in the recruitment, selection and training of talent. In response to the ADVISORIES board called a Action in May, we updated the reports language to better contextualized the information and light of the current pandemic and included a new case studies that reflect the business realities of operating in a cove in 19 economy. The report acknowledges that the Cove in 19 Pandemic will continue tohave devastating impacts on the U. S. Economy, businesses and employees, but then shifts to highlight the amazing resiliency and flexibility that businesses and employees have shown and adapting their recruitment and selection, management and training investments. To illustrate this flexibility, we ask board members to share examples with their companies and how they’ve adopted these in the areas of hiring, training, recruitment. Many of those examples air in the report. Finally, the report underscores the urgent need to optimize America’s talent pool by engaging all potential workers protect, particularly underutilized or untapped talent. We recognize that during the post pandemic recovery, although employers may potentially have more choices with fewer open roles, the skills gap is still present and growing. The structural forces impacting our workforce cannot be solved overnight, but employers can lead the long term recovery with really investments in these processes. We have also discussed collecting additional effective practices focused on the return to work in order to keep the information fresh, and we welcome your continued input. The second item I would like to discuss is a request that we made to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The working group spent the first half of the year producing a set of recommendations focused on identifying people who are out of the workforce and how toe link them with employment opportunities in the region of the country. In September, we invited Commissioner Beach and his staff to discuss the current capabilities and scope of data data available through the department’s job openings and labor turnover survey or jolts. After hearing their presentation, the groups specifically recommended more granular jolts data incorporating state and local data elements. This month. Commissioner Beach delivered on that recommendation early. Yes, early. And it is here today to discuss that new data on job vacancies in all 50 states and in 18 metropolitan areas. I want to thank the bureau for all their efforts on this important data analysis and encourage the advisory board to continue our advocacy to make this data available on a regular and ongoing basis. He is here to offer an overview the data I now yield my time to Commissioner Beach. Thanks. Thanks very much. Scott and Secretary Ross, Adviser Trump. I have spoken to my staff about delivering early and I’ve told him to do it every time. All right, OK, eso at tab to you will find your slides. And on page 17 you’ll find some information on our wonderful M s A jolts data. So I’m just going to highlight a few things. You can look at the data yourself. I look at the data and I just see, I just see real potential here. Thank you very much. Board for, uh, for asking us to do this pride project way. We would have probably gotten to it at some point, but we wanted to do it, and we’ve wanted to do it along. After all, the U. S economy is really not a national. Thing is, it is. It’s a collection of small economies, and so looking at the metropolitan area is makes perfectly good sense. And if you’re going to try to put people into jobs, you’re gonna want tohave labor demand. And our product is the only product out there that does labor demand. And not right now. We only do it at the national level. Not anymore. On June 16 we announced these data. These are official data. These air demonstration data, their experimental data until we get a regular process put in place. Which court requires a little bit of a did additional funding. We estimated job openings, hiring and separations. Those were all elements of what are called dynamic market analysis for 18 metropolitan statistical areas. The largest 18 in the United States. You can see that on the screen now. It is the next slide slide 18. And these 18 M essays contain 38% of all workers in our labor force. So I think they really do indicate something. Now, when I look at these data, I see amazing variation between just We just picked four. And if you look a slide 19 I’ve been looking at data for a long time. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. And when I looked at these data and these data are just the big the biggest M essays in the census regions, the Big Four census regions just look at the variation in that data. Now, when you see variation, you ought to be asking yourself the question, Why? Why is there variation? If you look at the next slide on page 20 you’ll see the variation occurs during the height of the expansion. Well, this is where I think these data are really going to prove out, asking yourself why in our wives this prices variation Well, of course, the first thing every M s a probably has a slightly different economic base. The economic base of New York is different than that of Louisville, which is different than that in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles. So which part of the economy is recovering fastest? That’s the question we would ask right now. Or which part of the economy is gray and why? Why is it growing? Are we making the investments correctly? Are we doing the right things on foreign trade? Another thing. I think regulation plays an enormous role in how quickly labour markets expand. And I think talking to my friends over at HUD just last week about these data, they said, Oh my gosh, this could let us. This could lead us toe Look at zoning land use regulations. Well, some of you are interested in another regulation, which is occupational licensing certain areas, doom or occupational licensing than others. Could that be the reason why there’s thes variations? Is it an income distributional thing? Is it transportation infrastructure? Now, for the first time ever, you’ll be able to connect those kinds of data occupational data, zoning, data, health data to labor demand data, which we’ve not been able to do before. And I think that Adviser Trump, I think that they’re connecting these then to skills data. Well, we’ll just really produce an entirely new package, so we’re very excited thank you to the president for recommending a significant amount of funding for this project in the F Y 21 budget. We with that funding, we will double the staff. Currently there 26 noble souls working in Atlanta collecting all of these data. We will double the staff. We will more than double the sample, and we’ll be able to do not 18 M essays on a quarterly basis, but 50 M essays on a quarterly basis. And I think that, uh, we will be able to see how labour demand is changing across this complex economy and thus is a consequence. And I’ll conclude here better shape our educational policy, our investment policy, our infrastructure policy. This should be a major new element in state economic planning, economic development, planning. I think the mayor’s will begin to say for the first time. Oh, yes, there is something up there in Washington. We really like it. It’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And it’s really rather exciting. And I think many of us, except for our governors around this table, were incredibly surprised that this data did not already exist. I certainly waas three years ago. So it is really exciting that now employers, educators, policymakers, students will have that kind of transparency. And for the budget, we will work hard to get the funding to make it perm permanent. So thank you for your hard work and thank your team for delivering ahead of schedule. Um, now we’ll turn us back. Yeah, please. I believe you have an announcement from the administration, and I don’t know if you want to touch on that now or later. Sure, I appreciate it. And so now maybe Jenny will will start with with Rust, and then we’ll come back to you for a few more presenters. But while we’re on this topic, I think it’s relevant to talk briefly prior to the signing about the executive order that is being put forth today and signed by the president. That’s responsive to the work being done by this council, the recommendations of the council, and also what’s happening in the private sector across the country. And we’re trying to catalyze more of it, leading by example. So Director Russ, void of the Office of Management and Budget, has been the champion of this initiative, and certainly as the country’s largest employer it is. It’s no small feat. But Russ, if you want to just take it from here and tell us a little bit about the executive order and, uh, and what the president will be signing, Sure, Thank you, Ivanka. And the president’s going to taken a major step forward at the end of this meeting. In ending the bias against skills based hiring in the federal government is the largest employer on to really use the federal government to champion a lot of the ideas that you all have been putting forward. So what the EO will do is primarily three things. It will end the mandatory educational requirement for hiring unless, as the statute requires, that record that degree is absolutely necessary to perform that position’s duties. It will also no longer require two or four year degrees to be a qualifying certification to do a job, and it will also end of the ability for candidates to self certify as they go through the process. And this is important, I think, on two fronts one on for the benefit of the the future employees. They have a new pathway that will potentially have meet their degree requirements and apprenticeships and other other ways. Teoh access meaningful work and experience the dignity of working for the federal government serving their country. So that’s really important as well. We also think it will have a great benefit for federal agencies. About 40% of the time. The HR departments will give a list of certified candidates for people to hire from, and the hirers will then go through, and they will find that they’re not actually qualified for the job or worse, they’ll go forward and they’ll hire, and that person will not be able to do the job that they’ve been asked to perform. And so we believe that this will actually lead Teoh a better workforce. That’s that is mortgage ear towards being able to accomplish the skill sets that are required and will be able to do it quicker. We have a number of pilot programs in place right now. We’re finding that it will only take six weeks to get through the process. So we’re really excited about this, E O. It’s a long time coming. The president has been leading on this. Ivan has been leading on this. There’s been another number of members of Congress like Marco Rubio have been putting forth ideas like this. Uh, and so we’re really excited The presents taking this step today to have the federal government lead in this area, and hopefully it has ripple effects throughout the country. So thank you, Ivanka, for the opportunity to speak about it. It is very exciting. And we look forward to its swift, full implementation. And now I’d like to go back Teoh, Mr Mehdi, and to share with us some of the additional work that you’ve been doing on the multiple pathways that I moved too quickly by. So no, no, no. We we didn’t want to miss an important component of the supply chain of creating the skills that we’re speaking about here, in particular, the educational institutions. And so if we could hear comments from both the work that’s been done from J. Box and as well, from Sebastian Thune in J. Who is a president of Kentucky Community and Technical System and then Sebastian, founder president of UDACITY. So we’re somewhere? Yeah, right there. Okay, so we’ll start with Jay, and so we just don’t want to leave out the education system in our comments, and they’ve done a lot of work in our work street. So what? We’ve been talking about a lot around this table. It’s the importance of public and private partnerships in education that that is just critical for us to reach out to business and industry and have them drive what we do in education. Four years ago in Kentucky, Kentucky Community College System partnered with the Kentucky Chamber to bring together the Business Education Roundtable to do just that, to identify the skill sets that were necessary for the for our future workers. And then we went back and education to revise our academic plans to meet those still sets. Now that has morphed during this pandemic to now what we call Restart Kentucky, where the chamber and us are partnering together. The chamber is bringing in from the company’s all the job openings that are out there with like we’re talking about the labor statistics. Companies can post what the jobs are that are open at their companies. Then we match up with that with the skill sets that are necessary to fill those jobs and have a link for the individuals to come to us to get those skill sets, and we feel like that’s a nim Porton. Part of what we do in education is partner and align our scale sets that we teach with with the demand of business and industry. Yeah, I want to thank you for being here. Thank you for your incredible vision doing this and incredibly timely ways. WAAS Obviously, the thief pandemic crisis has accelerated an already existing trend towards civilization and restriction of society. Um, we have addresses toe nontraditional training opportunities, maybe team with companies like Google and Facebook in IBM and Microsoft, many others to provide technical training to individuals that would like to step into the digital world. And get tired of the drops that we talked about before. Thin the next corner office, the next desk office a seesaw in doing so because we’re going talk there. But I think Mike talks about, say, about potential new ways off, providing students with support. Vitor most of support not from government but from industry from partner companies just launched a major initiative. Is Microsoft really go and offer individuals the chance on the table through some school based training, and that’s been taking off from a corporate perspective. The last three months have been sad to say, and happy to say, great business for us because there’s an incredible number of people now that see the opportunity to move their own careers forward. We never commend him, Uncle, for the for the vision behind this, I believe it. Some pulling in the future. It ought to be the case that the American workforce engages in lifelong education, and that’s not the case today. And it’s not the way you want it to be and ought to be the case that people own their credentials and take them with them. Not to be the case that this education be diverse and drop relevant and skills development, not just traditional degrees, and I think this body of people here has pushed us harder than ever before. I hope that the coronavirus situation as statuses provides an accelerant for these developments because if you do have a job really well, you might leave frog and make this country more Strama. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sebastian. And it was really a pleasure for us to be able to hear from some of your students and your Scott as well. Recently as we did a zoom call has a board and really heard their experience of digital online learning firsthand. So, so so thank you for that. The last working group we have will be presented by Mike Pr of the Milken Institute, and we saw to measure and encourage employer led training investments. This is really critically important because the employers are closest to the jobs they know, the skills that they are seeking to recruit, and they really need to take a lead on this front. But there was no commonality to Lourdes measuring the effectiveness of these programs common language, common, even even systems instead of metrics. So we sought to change that as like, you have a great update for us. So So plays the closures. Great. Thank you, Ivanka in Secretary Rawson. Welcome to the council members. I want to begin by acknowledging Barbara Humped in my co chair, who is unable to attend today. She’s been a key part of the work that we’re presenting today, and Ivanka’s you mentioned. It’s It’s more critical time than ever. We’ve been spending a lot of our time. One of our goals is to prioritize, as you mentioned, the collection of national data on employer provided, skill based training, and we think it’s important for a number of reasons. It’s training is a strategic decision for firms and a competitive advantage. Um, but yet there was no no, no, no common language, no common definition of what skill based training men. And so, as you may recall, that are September 2019 board meeting. We presented a recommendation for the specific data categories that should be prioritized in national data collection efforts. And at that meeting we said that if the full board adopted are working group’s recommendation for what data should be collected, which we did, we’re glad to say that we continue to explore how that data should be collected. And so today we’re pleased to represent a report and a set of four recommendations on that exact topic before I turn it over to marry an Wanamaker Teoh summer, a summarize the report that she led and present our recommendations. I want to give a few shoutouts to some folks for their incredible work on this effort. First of all to Johnny Taylor and his team at the Society for Human Resource Management. My co chair, Barbara Hampton, and her team at Siemens. And last, but certainly not least, Marianne water maker, who I mentioned lead this effort a Zilong a swell as her colleagues at the University of Tennessee. So with that Mary Ann, I’ll turn it over to you toe to talk about the report in the recommendations. Thank you, Mike and Secretary Ross, Adviser Trump. So this has really been a great partnership, and we’re delighted to release the white paper today following months of discussion. The truth is, we’re ready to release it in March, so it’s really been burning a hole in my pocket for three months. Andi underlying issue we’ve been grappling with is that, as Mike mentioned, despite a real growing acknowledgement that skills based training at all ages, Sebastian mentioned, is gonna be a critical component of meeting workforce needs in the future. The federal government’s infrastructure for measuring these investments is really inadequate. When I was at sea a few years ago, I was surprised to find that some of our current estimates of employer training employer provided training in this country are extrapolated from surveys that were taken in the 19 nineties. That’s how bad the data are. So from a public policy perspective, this is gonna be increasingly costly. You can’t make good public policy if you don’t understand or know what training is being accomplished outside of traditional degree and certificate programs. And I think Corona Virus, the Cove in 19 is really showing us just how valuable high quality data are for federal policy making. So, as Mike mentioned at the last meeting, which was in December, we, um we did go ahead and approve of some definitions on what skill based training WAAS and we set forward these essential data elements and approved these data elements is things we wanted to collect in the effort. And so today I’m setting, we’re setting forward some additional some additional guidelines for this collection effort. So in your slide on page 23 of your packet, we are expanding on kind of the vision that that we had before. So before we were telling you, these are the essential data items, and then in the in the white paper, we’re going to expand on that vision and also say in addition to the kind of key things we want to measure here, the principles by which we want to measure them. Um, And so first, we want to emphasize that these data are going to be far more informative if we’re collecting them alongside information on firm investments in technology and in particular, potentially labor saving technology. So whatever the future of work might be, I think we can all agree that a key public policy question is how workers technology and skill based training are interacting together in the labor market. So keep Principal. One is that the key data elements need to be captured in a way that they can be matched to measures of firm technology investments, for example, robotics and artificial intelligence. That that requirement or a recommendation narrows substantially the current federal survey vehicles that could be expanded to meet our needs. We also are recommending that these data be measured every two years so that we’re working from frequent up to date information on employer and employee behavior. The data should be captured in a nationally representative sample. Maybe that goes without saying, and then finally these data need to be disseminated in the most usable way possible. So we’re recommending that the survey be large enough so that tabulations by industry, worker, education, geography, firm size etcetera can be performed without loss of privacy. Um, and then that leads us to the last slide here. The record, the actual recommendations For what? We’re what we’re asking the statistical agencies to do. And to be clear, they have They have supported us and been involved in this conversation from the very beginning. We’re not telling you. No, we’re not suggesting anything that that can’t be accomplished that they don’t agree with. And so here here the recommendations. So first, we’re proposing to quick adaptations to existing surveys to capture some. Keep some of these key data elements, even though these strategies won’t give us the full picture of employer provided training that we need, but they will give us some preliminary data to work with. So our first short run recommendation is for the Census Bureau to expand one of two current surveys toe ask employees employers about their training efforts. This is gonna give us just a quick measure of prevalence and a measure of the dollar investments that air going into those efforts The second short run recommendation gives us a quick measure on the employee’s side. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics Statistics runs the national Compensation Survey. That’s our main tool for understanding what share of employees have access to health insurance. Sick leave, paid family leave, etcetera. And so we’re asking that employer provided training be one of the benefits it’s measured in that survey. Those numbers are already frequently used to guide policy making. Um, although these short run strategies will push us well ahead of where we are today. They’re still very imperfectly ways of informing workforce policy because we cannot connect employees to employers in any of those strategies, and we’re limited in the sorts of questions we can ask in both of the surveys. So in the long run, we’re recommending that the statistical agencies implement a new training module, and so that’s long run recommendation Number one. The module would be a paired employee employer survey. On the employer side, the survey would take a current survey from census that’s already asking the key questions around technology investments in robotics and AI, and then add a second module that asks about thes skill based training investments. Then the survey instrument would also survey employees at that employer, measuring all of the demographic characteristics that we think are so critical to understanding incidents of training across the population and then finally, long run recommend recommendation to. And this is the one I’m really excited about because I really think it breaks new ground. We’re laying out a vision for how the data produced by this survey will fit into the overall federal data infrastructure. And so then the magic in that is that the the strategy we’re laying out will allow the federal system to follow trained workers throughout their careers, no matter where they ultimately are employed. We. So we survey you once, and we capture you, and then, no matter who your ultimate employer is, will be able to see how these training investments are paying off. So I am happy to take any questions before I do. Let me also say that we are looking for partners in this mission. So the Census Bureau has successfully implemented a partnership model in the past where bureau partners, the bureau partners with non profits and outside academics to both designed the survey and then to amplify the results, and we think the survey that we’re proposing is going to be more effective under such a partnership. So we’ve had some initial conversations, really exciting conversations with nonprofits who were interested in influence and influencing the work we’re doing and amplifying it once it’s done. But we’re anxious to pick up more. So I encourage any interested parties to reach out to me or to one of the statistical agencies, your Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Census Bureau. Thank you. I’ll hand it to you, Mike. Thanks. Mary Ann, are there? Are there any questions for for Marianne or comments? We do this. Commissioner Beach. If we if we approve this recommendation, we look forward to your early delivery on recommendations. We’ll have it next week. Good. We used to collect these data back back a long time ago, and they were. You know, it’s always a matter of keeping certain surveys going and not others, which I think is an object lesson for anyone who’s doing planning is to make sure that your long run vision out is is much, much more robust than your short term vision. It was too bad that we had to cancel that they have serious for funding reasons. And the full report is in Tab eight in your book if you want to see it. A Zai mentioned Marianne led the efforts on It is a very thorough report and then very thoughtful, very targeted, very specific, very needed recommendations. And you could just tell from the excitement her voice about what she’s gonna do when she gets this data and be ableto help, help, look through this. And so before we take a vote on these, we have three more recommendations from the group, so we should kind of go on with those. So let’s let’s go. To those so included in last month’s called the Action is the goal to remove obstacles to the modernization of American education training to a cell, accelerate re Skilling and facilitate innovation in the workforce development. Since then, our working group has been focused on deliberating further on how to remove barriers and create new pathways to workforce development. As a group, we’ve reached an immediate consensus in three areas and we continue to discuss in some other areas to guide public and private sector efforts in creating successful lifelong learning opportunities, and we’re pleased to present three of them today. The first recommendation is to modernize the federal Student Aid Student financial aid system. A za group were recommending that the federal government allow federal Title four and other student financial aid for high quality, short term market aligned credential programs that stack into lifelong opportunities. So, for example, things that Sebastian and his great company are doing for workers. This would give academic it’s and institutions and employers greater flexibility to innovate, experiment and ultimately improve education and training delivery models alongside the traditional educational models. The second recommendation is to expand employer provided education assistance to support employees. As many of you know, many American employees receive some sort of tuition benefits from their employers as support for workforce development. Currently, Internal Revenue Code Section 1 27 allows for $5250 of educational assistance to an employee to be excluded from an employee’s gross income as a group, were recommending that both of the size of the cap and the scope of the benefits should be adjusted to ensure that all Americans can benefit from employers, tax advantage, tuition investments and specifically we came to consensus in three areas. First, we believe Congress should consider increasing the increases to the cap, which has not been increased in over 40 years in line with necessary education and training expenditures. We also believe that expanding section 1 27 to include student loan repayment in modern educational purchases such as laptops and other devices. A types of employee benefits should also be considered. And finally, the scope of the benefits should be modernized to give greater flexibility to employ employees pursuing lifelong learning opportunities outside the traditional educational model. And our third and final recommendation is to encourage the repatriation of strategic supply chains in specifically in underserved communities. The Cove in 19 Pandemic has revealed that the United States needs to rethink supply chains and such as, for example, medical supplies to make them more resilient to future shocks. As a group, we we believe we must enable a domestic value chain that promotes job growth and workforce development in key manufacturing sectors for underserved communities. Repatriating strategic supply chains in geographic areas where the prospects for optimizing employment for untapped labor pools is high is a huge win win for the American public now building on the great work of the Modernizing Candidate Recruitment and Training Practices Group, which previously showed us that we should focus our efforts on opportunity zones, which, you may recall, is a federal tax incentive program in the Tax Cut in Jobs Act of 2017 designed to spur economic development in distress communities across the countries is a way to quickly identify geographic areas where the prospects for optimizing employment for untapped labor pools is high. And just a quick aside, I should also mention that one of the recommendations from their working group that we adopted at one of our previous board meetings is to create an opportunity zone workforce Development playbook. I’m pleased to announce that two days ago my colleagues at the Milken Institute released a report, a 45 page guide or playbook for state and local government officials to learn more about best practices for engaging opportunities, own capital and engaging in high in innovative public private partnerships. As part of their integrated strategies for creating jobs in other community led efforts, we specifically incorporated the Workforce Development Recommendation from that working group into our playbook. It’s available on our website and I’m happy to give copies to folks after the meeting. With that, let me open it up. Turn it back to you, Ivanka. Foreign Secretary Ross for any comments or questions from the group. And then we can call all seven recommendations to a vote from the group has had one question on the third part There is it relates to the supply chain you mentioned like health supplies is in particular circumstances there. More details on was strategic. No, we did not receive. We did not have consensus over particular areas. The idea the genesis from this was coming from the fact was the cove in 19 pandemic and thinking about supply chain PPE s medical supplies and those types of things we did not want to get into defining what specific of strategic that was. I know there’s a number of folks that have a different that different views on what is strategically important. Part was there seems to be this this this focus among employers to move from supply chains that spoke a s’more inefficiency and optimization. And now the keyword is being resilient. And we thought if if if companies were going to be doing that anyway. There are easy ways in in the opportunity zone legislation to provide additional incentives toe have those those supply chains come back to the areas that need it the most and where workforce, that the employees could benefit the most from that. And so that’s the That’s right, Michael and Scotches to to further that, we are developing and will soon be presenting a U. S. Government plan to do exactly that, highlighting the specific industries that are critical from national security perspective and obviously from an economic and health perspective, Teoh to secure supply chain and create the resiliency Michael just mentioned. So so thank you. Any additional questions on this past working group? Great Will, Marianne and Mike, thank you so much for your great work and the whole team behind you in this subgroup who Just herculean effort. So we’re thankful. And with that, let’s call a vote on the recommendations that were just presented all in favor. Oh, hi. Perfect. So they are past. So with that, I am going to open it up to two questions. Then we will officially adjourn and then opened back up to a more casual conversation where Larry will kick us off with a little bit of an update on on the status of the economy and answer any questions you have. We’ll take a short break for everyone to stretch their legs. And then the president will be joining us to sign the executive order in furtherance of these recommendations. So can I open it up, please? Secretary. Thanks, Ivanka. I just wanted Teoh. Add to some of the comments that were made. Mike, your 1st 2 suggestions there are completely in line with what we have been trying to advance, and it’s ah, it’s great to hear the recommendations from from the Council in that regard. And Jenny, you mentioned the workforce grant preparation reimagining workforce grant, preparation, competition, which we just announced last week. And I think this is, ah, a really unique way to further breakdown silos that have been so strong between education and the workforce in very practical ways, really helping to expand apprenticeship in short term certification. That’s that’s going to be the highlight of the application process, also thinking about some high right institutions again, the change in this the ultimate change that to the pandemic is going to create both for higher ed institutions and for opportunity for work. The notion of using facilities and faculty X, you know, experience and expertise to help incubate small businesses. And that is going to be the other focus of this. Ah, reimagining workforce preparation grant. So thanks for mentioning that in highlighting it. And thank you, Ivanka and Secretary Ross for your leadership on the council here. Really great recommendations and great work, too. Really support and expand pathways for students of all ages. Last meeting, we discussed recommendations for legislation beyond what was mentioned here today, which was supplementary. And and it’s terrific that in addition to the program, just mentioned, many of them were being executed or have subsequently been executed by the Department of Education in the form of pilot programs. Pell for prisoners, some of the short term funding a ring for a shorter term, high quality programming. So So thank you for your great work on that front. Um, as we seek to create larger scale to each of these things. Any other questions from the group before we officially adjourned the meeting? Amazing. Well, thank you, everyone, for your tremendous work, I think for those of you who have sat on these before, there has been an expression of surprised by how much that this group is has done in terms of tangible deliverables. And part of the reason that the president’s also signing an executive order today to extend the life span of the board is so we can take some of the ideas that are now being piloted and really scale them in a significant way, particularly the learning and and career record theater operable learning record that we’re renaming. Thank you for that suggestion. I agree with it, um and and really take those pilots and combine them, learn from them, study them and and grow it. And also obviously, given the delay with the covert epidemic and realigning the message of our workforce campaign, we will be launching that in the coming weeks as well. So think everyone in this room for their continued service for another year, and we look forward to too much more great work in the future. And with that, I will officially adjourn and go get the president who will be joining us. While Larry will, given update on the economic recovery, share his insight and answer any questions you have. Take it away. My hand. Good. Okay. Thanks. Hi, everybody. Thank you, Hank. Appreciate it. Thanks to everybody here, my colleagues and those from the private sector. So a few thoughts, Uh, if you hadn’t heard we are rather more in the V shaped recovery argument. There’s a lot of it orations of that. I’ve heard about these Els use. I’m speaking to a group. I don’t even remember some big think tank. And General David Trash asked me what about a square root. And I had to really think about that. Then I figured it out. Right. Got it? No. We’re gonna be in the V shaped recovery, uh, the V shape camp. Some days, some years we go to summer camp. This year we go to the V shaped recovery camp. And actually, it’s working pretty well in the early goings. Let’s assume we started to grow again in April, maybe late April or may call it may. And now we’re through June on. Really almost every indicator is showing a V. Well, that continues remains to be seen. I’m only as good as the numbers, but the fundamentals seem okay. I mean I go down a laundry list of government and or private sector surveys? Um, restaurants rising rapidly from a low base, to be sure, but they are rising. Homebuilders sharply. Uh, homebuilding. Demand is very high. We’ve had some great reports on the housing sector in general. On the other hand, truckers trucking surveys are rising rapidly. Durable goods had a gangbuster report. I think it was yesterday, the day before a new hot indicators. The Apple Mobility Index, which gives you a read on traveling, particularly auto. Traveling on that index has gone up so much it’s almost two pre pandemic levels. And as the economy opens or reopens up, people are cooped up now getting around. Gasoline demand is high. We’ve actually had an increase in energy prices. Not too hot, not too cold. So they’re probably in a good zone. Maybe another bucker to you. You could make some money in the energy business again. Um, initial claims very important weekly claims for new applications and continuing claims for the unemployment insurance payouts. The initial claims. The applications air up 12 straight weeks. I saw some financial places saying, well, they should have gone down, Mawr but I don’t know. They’re down substantially. 12 weeks is a good number. The other thing, that’s very interesting to me on the continuing claims, which means those that are actually receiving unemployment insurance payments those that dropped from 24.9 million to 19 point 5,000,005 and 1/2 5.4 million drop now these are very, very high levels. I get that, but we’re coming from a rough place and what I call the pandemic contraction. You know, just a zone aside, This is not a macroeconomic event so much as it is a natural disaster that wound up squashing the economy. That’s an important distinction. When I see references two prior cycles of recessions or worse, I say to myself, This person is really missing the key point, and it’s sort of like a bad bad hurricane or a terrific terrible snowstorm when it hits its very bad and don’t get me wrong is enormous heartbreak and hardship in these numbers and we’re not near full recovery yet. But having noted that natural disasters past and then you resume your activity. Now there’ll be some patch work necessary, but the fundamental structures the fundamental architecture. The economy, which was very strong in the past three years and two months before the pandemic is there. And hopefully with policy actions that are pro growth and providing incentives, you know we will build upon that. So I think these claims numbers, you know, we had a huge jump in retail sales. Today’s income reports showed a gigantic jumping. Overall, consumer spending was up 8% for the month. I believe it’s the biggest one in history. Bill Beach could correct me if I’m wrong. 18% rise in retail sales That thought was the biggest one in history or very near to a three million jobs increase in May. So it’s a good story so far. You know, this may be a triumph of hope over expectations. I get that. But deep prayer and meditation plays a large role in my econometric modelling, and I am the quintessential optimist. It’s in my DNA. I’m a terrible bear, and I’m a much better bull. But what I see from the numbers we got all these big shots here who have gigantic departments cranking out numbers, my friend Scalia and my friend Wilbur and others and Mr Beach who runs a bill is, you know, that’s what they’re showing if the changes will change. But so far, so good, and it’s very, very important to us. I will reference the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office. Not always friendly Teoh free market supply side administrations. But they’re showing similar numbers basically a 20% growth rate in the second after the year. One of Wall Street’s leading economists at Hyman, who has millions of followers, he’s looking at 20% in Q 3 20% Q 4 by into those numbers. That’s what are own a model show from the Council of Economic Advisers and the NDC. So if I get 2020 the second quarter is going to be terrible. Contraction. Pandemic contraction. Absolutely. Pick a number, any number of decline and you’ll be close. But coming back from that low level 20% 20%. And if we got 5% in Q 1 2021 that arithmetic works out. We will have gotten back to the level of GDP at the peak in 2019 so it won’t take five or six or seven years. It could be done frankly in the next year all right. That’s what the arithmetic shows. Now we’re looking carefully The news on Cove in 19 in the last 456 days. Not good. I understand that. I’ll just add some color to that. Gene and I were at the Virus Task Force meeting this morning. Andi, you know, there are about, I don’t know, a 10 maybe a dozen hot spots in big places. You know, those are the facts and we can’t sugar coat that. You basically got Florida and Texas and California and Arizona was probably the biggest. You’ve got others in some smaller metro areas. On the other hand, the New York New Jersey metropolitan area has recovered beautifully. Some thought that would never happen. Michigan. These numbers in terms of cases and fatalities for those states or big negatives, Michigan is the same way. Minnesota’s the same way. So, you know, there’s good news here, and there’s bad news here. Deborah Burkes, who teaches me what little I know about the subject, says it’s not a second wave so much as it is a continuation of the first way, but which the virus moves on. Uh, it’s kind of moving South and West And that’s what we’re seeing. And the others on the task force. The professional health people Bob Redfield, Tony Fauci and Deborah and so forth and the other, some others. You know, they have tools Now. We didn’t have two or 34 months ago. Massive testing. I mean, we’re doing about 500,000 tests per day, right? Hospitalization care is much better in their adequate hospitals. The equipment that PP, equipment and so forth is in much, much better shape, both in terms of the inventory stock as well as the applications. The diagnostics are better than they were, so I believe this is manageable. That’s what they’re telling us. I sincerely hope they’re right. I would just say one of the conclusions from the meeting this morning is the necessity to remind people at the federal level and state level and the mayors in the county local to maintain good practices. You know, let’s not forget wearing face covers when necessary, when appropriate, is still very important. I don’t want to preach on this. I’m just saying this is what they report. This is how we will solve those hot spots, just as we saw. You know, the disaster we experienced in March on April. Social distancing is still very important. You know, lots of young people go into bars, hugging, kissing and dancing and whatnot. I’m too old to appreciate whatever they do, but it doesn’t look that great in terms of a cove in 19 might be good in other periods, but it doesn’t look so good to me right now. Uh, there’s plenty of hospital capacity, so so this is manageable. That’s their message to us. But we have to emphasize good practices and guidelines. Last couple of points. I think I’m essentially vamping while the president comes here, which I used to do is a broadcaster. You can cut me off after an hour and 1/2 but I’ll just give you just a couple of final thoughts when I caucus with Ivanka a couple years back. When I came on board here and we talked about this, so much of the heart of this project was about re Skilling and retraining, and I guess re educating to some extent to, and I still see this in that context and I was just thinking, I mean, it’s just random thoughts, you know, the need. The need for re Skilling is is enormous in the modern age. And, you know, just think about everything is driven now. Literally. Everything is driven by computing computing skills. Um, teleworking is gonna be very important. Five g is coming. These air themes that are gonna be with us, not only because of the progress of technology and how it infiltrates every nook and cranny of the economy. But I will, you know, add an asterisk for the Kobe 19 which is going to change. Some work habits may change for the better, as far as you can tell. Far as I know, you know, stuff like I was just a random list. This computing revolution, information processing, Everything’s a semiconductor chip based on it. Health care, automobiles. You know, being a factory worker on the assembly lines completely different today than it was 25 35 50 years. I mean, completely, totally different, right? You’re operating computers and robots. You can do it. It’s just a different kind of job. Factories or different farming is different. Um, research analysis all manner of science is affected by all the modern gains we’ve had in technology and technology. advances, which I continue to believe is the heart of the American economy. One of my favorite classical economist, Joseph Schumpeter, he died and early 19 fifties, but I commune with him sometimes on the weekends. He was the guy who coined the phase creative destruction. And that’s what we’re seeing. By the way, that Schumpeter, my spiritual connection, was kind of a joke. But some of it’s actually, um, yeah, stuff, simple stuff like stuff that I might not have known very well 10 15 years ago. Using Microsoft Word. Yeah, right. Um uh, All kinds of spreadsheet works now. These air skills, you can learn. Even old guys like me can learn him. Everybody’s got learned when they learned that they could do very well and I want to emphasize one other thing here. Really. The heart of Ivanka’s vision for this project was to use the private sector, not the government, to go through this training, reeducation and re. Skilling and I just fell in love with project when I heard that because we have all these on whatever we have well over 50 training programs and the government none. I’m probably any good. I don’t want to beat up on everybody. But I think people in private business, larger, small, they know what they need and what they should teach a lot better than folks here in Washington, myself included. And so that’s why I’ve always admired and tried to support him. Bianca on this project. And I will say this to folks who learned these new skills. Right and change, um, are a lot more confident about the future. It just gives them self knowledge and self awareness and self esteem. That’s probably an overlooked factoid here, but it really is so they can go out into the workplace and see jobs and go to interviews, having been to trade schools or whatever it is community colleges and so forth and know that they have a good shot at it and know that they have a good shot at the good life. Because these skills bring what higher wages, more job opportunities and people come back into the workforce, those air, the key points I want to make. And I think you know that works on many levels, such that a finish on on this point. Ah, I regard Ivanka’s project as fundamentally a major contribution to the growth, objectives and goals of the Trump administration. I mean, we always talk about lower taxes, which worked. We always talk about rolling back excessive and costly regulatory burdens, which has worked. We’ve always talked about unleashing energy. We’ve always talked about fair and reciprocal trade deals to help our workforce at home and provide more export markets. That’s a growth model that worked for three years and two months until the pandemic said in March, and work great with a 3.5% unemployment rate where low and wage earners did better than high end wage earners where minority groups, including African Americans, did better than the top 1%. And those air factoids those If it don’t blame me, blame Beach and Wilbur, they’ll have these economic bureaucracies. God knows what’s going on, but those are the facts seriously, it worked. We went into this pandemic with a terrific economy, probably the best in at least a generation, and there’s no reason why we came out. Can’t come out of this in position to repeat those successes, did it once. It could be done a second time, and I want to put in that cluster of growth policies Ivanka’s re Skilling retraining and re educating that brings the worker closer with better wages on mawr, confidence and more spread a core on a whole lot less fear about the future. So I see this as a growth project. I’m honored to be part. That’s great fun. I think I have to stop now. Thanks. I’ll just say thank you.