[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1166-S1169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Workforce Development

  Mr. President, I am here on the floor today to talk about how this 
strong American economy has led to historic workforce needs and how, if 
we do the right things to respond to that problem, it can become an 
opportunity--an opportunity to bring Americans off the

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sidelines, who for too long have not been in the workforce or have been 
underemployed, to bring them back in to work.
  It gives us the potential to do two things. One is to strengthen the 
economy. It is already strong, but it would be even stronger if we 
could fill this gap. By the way, if we don't fill this gap, if we don't 
provide the workforce, the economy will weaken. Second, it is to help 
millions of Americans who are not working, on the sidelines, or who are 
underemployed to find meaningful employment with good pay and good 
benefits.
  Pro-growth Federal tax policies, regulatory policies, and other 
policies over the past few years have worked. Some of us have talked 
about the need to reform the Tax Code and make it work better. A 
trillion dollars has been invested in the U.S. economy since tax 
reform. As an example, we have seen unemployment at low levels--3.6 
percent unemployment today, which is just about a 50-year low in terms 
of unemployment.
  The Congressional Budget Office has told us through recent data that 
we have grown at a steady 2.3 percent rate in the past year. That is 
good. This unemployment number is important, but also important is that 
we are seeing wage growth. In fact, we have now had 18 straight months 
of wage growth of over 3 percent. It is the first time we have had this 
in at least a decade. That is very important because you think about 
really, for the past decade, what we have had is flat wages or even 
declining wages relative to inflation. That is certainly true in my 
home State of Ohio. It has been about a decade and a half since we have 
seen any real wage growth. Now we have this steady wage growth.
  In fact, among blue-collar workers--what the Labor Department says--
nonsupervisory employees have seen the highest percentage increase in 
wage growth. For blue-collar workers, there has been a 6.6-percent wage 
growth over the past 2 years. By the way, that is about $1.50 an hour 
on average.
  It is a big deal, and it is very important because that was one of 
the great objectives we had in tax reform and tax cuts, was to ensure 
that we get the economy moving and give people the chance to earn more, 
to be able to have a feeling that if they worked hard and played by the 
rules, they could get ahead. We are seeing that. That is great news for 
the American people and great news for the folks I represent in Ohio 
who are finally benefiting from higher wages.
  At the same time, I am hearing from small business owners all over 
the State of Ohio--in fact, businesses at every level--that although 
they are able to move forward and add jobs, they are looking for 
workers, and that workforce is their biggest single challenge.
  We have now had 22 straight months of more jobs being offered than 
there are workers looking for work--22 months, almost 2 years of that. 
So there are a lot of openings out there.
  One thing that is interesting is that even though the economy is 
strong and we have unemployment at about 50-year lows, there still are 
people on the sidelines who aren't coming in to work, as they would 
normally. Economists call this a low labor force participation rate. 
What that means is, even though we have a strong economy and lots of 
jobs out there, there are still millions of Americans who are on the 
sidelines. It is estimated that there are about 8 million working-age 
men--this would be between the ages of 25 and 55--who are not looking 
for work today.
  This means the unemployment number which I mentioned earlier, at 3.6 
percent, which is a very low number--almost a 50-year low--is not the 
real number. The real number is actually higher than that if you assume 
a normal labor force participation rate. In other words, if you had 
some of these people who are out of work--I mentioned the 8 million 
men--coming into the workforce, the unemployment rate would be higher. 
In fact, if you go back to what the normal labor force participation 
rate would be just before the last great recession, the unemployment 
rate today would be about 7.6 percent, so about double what it actually 
is. That is an opportunity. That is an opportunity.

  Now, why aren't these folks working? Well, there are a number of 
reasons for that. Let's be honest. We don't really know. We have done a 
lot of analysis of it in our own office trying to figure it out, and 
part of it is the opioid crisis, I am convinced.
  I have come to the floor 60 times in the last few years to talk about 
the opioid crisis. We are making progress on that now. That is good. 
But when surveys are done by the Department of Labor or by the 
Brookings Institute, they show that a substantial number, as many as 45 
to 50 percent of people they survey, say they are taking pain 
medication on a daily basis who are out of work altogether. So those, 
roughly, 8 million men, for example, in one study, 47 percent say they 
are taking pain medication on a daily basis. Two-thirds have 
acknowledged it is prescription pain medication. This goes to the issue 
of opioids--opioid prescription drugs, heroin, fentanyl, and so on. 
When people are addicted, often it is impossible for them to get their 
act together to be engaged in work on a regular basis. So the opioid 
crisis definitely affects this.
  Another one, of course, is a lot of people are in our jails and 
prisons. We have a record number of people in prison. A lot of people 
are now getting out. The idea of the First Step Act and the Second 
Chance Act, which is legislation that is actually helping to get people 
back to work, is important, but, frankly, if you have a felony record, 
it is tough to get a job. That is why we often see these people are on 
the sidelines.
  Another issue that I think needs to be looked at is this skills gap. 
This is a big part of what is going on right now. There are jobs out 
there, but they require a certain level of skill. So it is great that 
we have low unemployment. It is great we have all these openings right 
now, but we just don't have enough skilled workers to fill those jobs 
that keep growing.
  I visited dozens of factories and businesses over the past year, and 
I keep hearing: We have this job for a welder, and we can't find any 
welders. There are plenty of people looking for work out there, on the 
sidelines looking for work, but there are no welders. There is one 
company in Ohio that told me they can hire up to 100 welders. It is a 
big manufacturing company. In Ohio and across the country, there are 
lots of these job openings for machinists, medical technicians in 
hospitals, and there are a lot of techs who are wanted right now--
computer programmers, people who know how to code. Coding is really 
important right now, particularly as you go into medical electronic 
records, as an example.
  If you look on ohiomeansjobs.com this morning--and that is a website 
that is up there showing what jobs are available in Ohio--there are 
187,000 jobs this morning being offered in Ohio. When you look at what 
those jobs are, you will see a lot of them require these skills we are 
talking about. They don't require necessarily a college degree, by the 
way. I am talking about technical skills. I mentioned techs and 
welders. I didn't mention truckdrivers, but that is one area where we 
need workers in Ohio. We are desperate for people who have the skills 
to be able to drive a truck. That requires getting a commercial truck 
driver's license, a CDL. These jobs are there, but they do require some 
level of skills training after high school.
  I think that skills gap, if it can be closed, would make a huge 
difference right now for our economy. Obviously, we need these jobs, 
and if the workforce isn't there, these businesses are going to move. 
They are going to move from Ohio, not just to Indiana but to India 
because that is where the jobs are going to be if we don't provide this 
level of skills training.
  Secondly, it is just a great opportunity for these individuals. Some 
are young people coming up, some are people midcareer. Getting skills 
training is so critical. Post-high school certificates are what we 
really need.
  Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute have highlighted this with a 
survey they do regularly. They say there are roughly 360,000 unfilled 
manufacturing jobs across the United States right now. They say it is 
going to get worse. They say the skills gap may lead to an additional 
2.4 million manufacturing jobs unfilled over the next 10 years with a 
negative economic impact of $2.5 trillion. This is a big deal for our 
economy.
  The basic training for the kind of jobs I am talking about is called 
career

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and technical education, CTE. For those who are a little older, you 
might think of a vocational school. CTE is so impressive today. It is 
not your old vocational school, it is high-tech, using much better 
equipment. The schools that are taking it seriously are bringing in 
excellent teachers from the outside, from industry, to understand what 
is needed in the real world. CTE is a great opportunity for so many 
young people.
  A few months ago, I toured the Vantage Career Center in Van Wert, OH. 
I go to a lot of career centers. I love to go. I am very inspired when 
I go. In Van Wert, they have juniors and seniors from more than a dozen 
school districts coming into one CTE center. They are studying things 
such as automotive technology, welding, nursing assistant training, 
carpentry, and truckdriving. They are finding when these students get 
out, they can typically get a job. Some are going on to further skills 
training. Some are going on to community college, some are going on to 
4-year institutions, but for young people in high school, look at CTE. 
It makes so much sense.
  I cofounded and co-chair what is called the Senate CTE Caucus. When I 
first got here in 2011, I started this with Senator Tim Kaine of 
Virginia. We started off having 3 of us in the caucus, and now there 
are 29 people in the caucus. Why? My colleagues go home, and they are 
hearing the same thing I am hearing, which is that we need to close the 
skills gap. Companies are looking for people, and it is a great 
opportunity for people who are on the outside to get into the inside to 
get a job with good pay and benefits.
  Our job is to increase awareness of these skills programs as an 
education option. Our job is to get students who are more interested in 
skills training into these jobs. This month of February is Career and 
Technical Education Month. We are putting together a resolution. We 
have 57 Senators who signed on to the resolution so far, and if you 
haven't signed on, let us know. It is an opportunity to just raise 
visibility about what is working well in so many of our States and the 
amazing opportunities out there for our young people.
  We passed some good legislation to help. In 2018, we passed the 
Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, which is working to improve the 
quality of CTE education programs, making sure we are using equipment 
and the standards of today's industry to make these programs even more 
effective.
  But skills training goes well beyond just these great high school 
programs. Industry-recognized, certificate-granting technical workforce 
training programs post-high school are another key to close the skills 
gap. Think of some of the workforce training programs you have probably 
heard about in your community that are being offered by your community 
college or may be offered by a local technical school. They give people 
a certificate they can then take to get a job that is industry 
recognized. For these kinds of post-high school training programs, I 
think the big opportunity comes in improving access because programs 
are expensive and a lot of young people can't afford them. A lot of 
midcareer people can't afford them.
  One thing we can do immediately is say: Let's expand Pell grants to 
include these kinds of programs. You can get a Pell grant if you want 
to go to a community college or go to a 4-year college or university. 
For some people, that is the right track, but, frankly, for a lot of 
people, they are looking to get these technical skills and get a 
certificate and get a job. There is no reason they shouldn't get the 
same help that the government is providing someone who wants to go to a 
4-year college or university for these programs to provide the skills 
that are so desperately needed. In fact, I would say we ought to focus 
on that more. We ought to change our mindset and say: Let's not just 
focus on college, as important as it is--and it is the right track for 
some students--but let's put an equal emphasis on skills training.
  We have legislation that is very simple. It says that for low-income 
families, where the students are eligible for Pell for college or 
university, let's make them eligible for one of these skills training 
programs that are less than 15 weeks. It has to be a high-quality 
program and provide this industry-recognized certificate.
  Our legislation is called the JOBS Act. It makes so much sense. It is 
bipartisan and bicameral and we should get it done. By the way, for 
those students who go through a technical training program and get that 
certificate and end up getting a job, a lot of them do go to college, 
but guess who pays for it? Typically, it is the company who pays for 
it. So they don't end up having this big debt or burden that so many 
students have.
  Student debt in Ohio is about $27,000 per student; whereas, if you go 
to one of these programs and end up getting an associate's degree or 
bachelor's degree or master's degree, typically you aren't paying 
anything because your employer is going to pay for you to get that 
additional training.
  My hope is that we can move this legislation forward quickly. It is 
something I hear from everyone back in Ohio. Over the past few weeks, 
we held roundtables on workforce at manufacturing businesses such as 
Stanley Electric in Madison County and Fecon, Inc., in Warren County, 
and we talked about this issue with businessowners, with community 
colleges, with workers who are actually on the job, and all these 
groups agree the JOBS Act is needed and needed badly.
  What is more, we know that a lot of businessowners who are getting 
engaged in this are willing to help these skills training programs to 
be more effective and to provide the skills training that actually 
works for them.
  The JOBS Act has now been endorsed by the National Skills Coalition, 
the Association for Career and Technical Education, the Business 
Roundtable, and other groups. It is the No. 1 priority, we are told, of 
the Association of Community Colleges and the American Association of 
Community Colleges. We heard the same thing from the Ohio Association 
of Community Colleges when I met with them earlier this month.
  I must state that I am also very pleased that the JOBS Act is 
included in the President's budget this year, as it was last year. I 
applaud President Trump and his administration for promoting this and 
on the work they are doing in training, internships, apprenticeships, 
and the JOBS Act, to provide this funding to encourage more Americans 
to get the skills training needed for them to have a better future. It 
is the best proposal out there, I believe, to help fill the skills gap 
right away.
  There are some alternative proposals out there that limit the kind of 
programs that would be eligible for this by requiring them to be a 
certain number of hours. Our community colleges in Ohio tell me that 
none of their short-term training programs would qualify for some of 
these alternatives that people are talking about. For programs like 
welding, precision machining, and electrical trades, we need to get the 
funding into the short-term training programs now.
  As I said earlier, this is CTE Month, Career Technical Education 
Month, so it is a good time to talk about all forms of technical 
education. If we make expanding these technical skills programs a 
priority, if we enact the JOBS Act that I have been talking about 
today, we are going to address the No. 1 issue we hear from our 
employers, and we are going to help millions of Americans have a better 
opportunity.
  There is momentum in Ohio right now. Businesses are expanding and 
seeking skilled workers, but, again, the skills gap is still an 
impediment. We need to seize this opportunity, keep our economy moving 
in a positive direction, and help Ohioans develop the skills to grow in 
the career of their choice and fulfill their potential in life.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me comment that the Senator 
from Ohio is right on target. I know that when we did the authorization 
bills--we actually have language now that we put in to try to encourage 
people while they are still in high school to find out what they want 
to do with their lives.
  One of the problems we have right now is, we have a great economy--
the best economy we have had in my lifetime--but the bad side of that 
is, there is a lot of competition out there, and we want to make sure 
that people are directed into areas where they really can enjoy life 
and where the market

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will work in their favor. We are very much concerned about that with 
the two bills we have done so far that has new language in there to 
encourage people to use pilot programs in high school to know what 
direction they want to go with their lives.