UPDATE: Obama, Business Executives Join To Expand Manufacturing Jobs
June 08 2011 - 11:42AM
Dow Jones News
President Barack Obama is joining with the chief executive of
Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI), a co-founder of Groupon Inc. and the
chairman of Accenture PLC (ACN) to help get community-college
students into manufacturing jobs.
Obama is traveling Wednesday to Northern Virginia Community
College, where he is set to discuss the importance of manufacturing
in America--a key theme of his re-election effort, the White House
said. The manufacturing sector, until May, had seen job increases
since October 2010.
The pitch is to get students into an array of manufacturing jobs
that require different levels of expertise. Ron Bloom, President
Obama's manufacturing czar, said the industry-led effort is aimed
at training "skilled blue-collar workers" such as welders. Bloom
said the training will be for jobs ranging from "something as
prosaic, if you will, as working in a steel mill to something as
sophisticated as working in a computer fabrication facility for
microprocessors."
It is unclear what impact the initiative will have as the
administration isn't pledging new funds to propel it. There are
13.9 million Americans who would like to work but who can't get a
job. The unemployment rate edged up to 9.1% in May from 9%, stoking
fears that the U.S. economy would fall back into a recession. The
unemployment rate in the manufacturing sector is 9.6%.
While the plan is to tailor credential programs based on needs
of employers in a given area, there is no guarantee getting a
certificate will lead to a job.
"Now, that won't always be able to absolutely translate into a
one-for-one job," said Bloom. He said the probability of
credentialed students getting jobs is "obviously far, far better
than if you're simply training yourself abstractly without
knowledge of what the needs of the local employers are."
Obama is joining with business leaders, community colleges and
manufacturing organizations in the effort. A key part of the
initiative will be a program by the Manufacturing Institute, a
non-profit organization affiliated with the National Association of
Manufacturers, to provide 500,000 community-college students with
industry-recognized credentials.
Obama will be getting help from some big names, including the
co-founder of the online coupon company Groupon and executives from
Snap-On Inc. (SNA), Motorola and Discovery Communications Inc.
(DISCA). Groupon's Brad Keywell, Motorola's Greg Brown, Snap-On's
Nick Pinchuk, Accenture's Bill Green, Discovery's David Zaslav and
other executives will take part in the effort. They are members of
the Aspen Institute's Skills for America's Future, a group that
seeks to pair employers with community colleges.
President Obama said ahead of the event that he is worried about
the pace of job growth in the U.S. "We are on the path of a
recovery, but it's got to accelerate," the president said. He also
cautioned, "We're going to have some days where things aren't going
as well as we'd like."
-By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256;
jared.favole@dowjones.com
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