Trump eyes major reboot for jobs training

CAMPAIGN PROMISE

the Labor Department on Wednesday and meeting with eight governors at the White House on Thursday.

There are few specifics as to how Trump would encourage more Americans to simultaneously work and learn as apprentices. He intends to improve co-ordination on the issue among businesses, schools and government leaders.

Administration officials declined to say how much additional money would be devoted for apprenticeship programs, let alone how they intend to increase the number of people taking part — from roughly 500,000 in fiscal 2016.

Earlier this year, Trump said he was willing to try for a goal of five million new apprenticeships over five years. Part of the challenge, White House officials said, was changing negative attitudes toward vocational education.

Funding may also prove an obstacle. Trump’s proposed budget would slash the Labor Department’s budget by a fifth to US$9.6 billion and its training programs by more than a third. The US$90 million spent on apprenticeships would be spared. The plan aims to more tightly organize what his aides say are 43 job training programs across 13 agencies.

Angela Hanks, of the liberal Center for American Progress, said the Trump budget betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how apprenticeship programs work.

“It’s great if we can all agree that apprenticeships are good,” she said. “But if you can’t access child care to get there, and you can’t partner to develop good programs because the workforce system that we have has been gutted, it’s hard to see how you get to the goal that the president’s laid out.”

Many employers say they can’t find workers with the necessary skills. The number of job openings climbed above six million in April, an all-time high, but the level of hiring has barely risen over the past year.

Apprenticeships had largely been focused on the construction sector but have since branched out to health care and information technology, among other fields. The Obama-era Labor Department — it also encouraged apprenticeships — noted 91 per cent of those that completed the programs found jobs with average incomes above US$60,000.

Labour Secretary Alexander Acosta last week defended Trump’s budget to a House committee considering its own plan. “We’re going to do more with less,” he told the appropriations committee, calling the president’s priorities “smart investments in programs that work.”

“You can only do less with less,” replied Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who criticized the cuts in jobs programs for those who need the most help finding work.