March 14, 2013

Mr. Speaker, Today millions of Americans are looking for work. At the same time, there are 3.6 million jobs sitting vacant, in part because there aren't enough qualified applicants to fill them. What can we do to erase the skills gap? Washington has tried, to the tune of $18 billion, to run more than fifty different workforce education programs that are supposed to be teaching job seekers the skills and expertise required to compete for jobs. But despite the hefty price tag, only a fraction of job seekers are completing these programs and many more are getting slowed in a maze of duplication and one-size-fits-all mandates. In 2012, President Obama said, "I want to cut through the maze of confusing [job] training programs, so that ...people...have one program...one place to go for all the information and help that they need." The SKILLS Act is the only plan on the table that treats job seekers as individuals and brings us closer to the President's stated target. Let's pass the SKILLS Act.