UPDATE: Obama, Business Executives Join To Expand Manufacturing Jobs

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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