By Grant Morgan
Ivanka Trump, advisor to the President, took to the CES 2020 keynote stage Tuesday afternoon alongside Gary Shapiro, CTA president and CEO, to discuss employer-led strategies to reskill workers, create apprenticeships, and develop K-12 STEM education programs.
“There’s really never been a better time to be working in America than today, and there’s never been more people working in American than today,” said Trump. “But what’s incredible, is that over the past year, of all the people who have secured jobs in this economy, 73 percent of them were from the sidelines. Not even on unemployment, they were outside of the workforce, they’d been marginalized and they’re coming back into the workforce, in part, because of the work we’re doing alongside academia and the many employers who have committed to our shared goals of helping Americans to secure the skills to fill the job vacancies.”
Additionally, Trump shared that the need for reskilling current workforces was a top concern on the minds of governors at a recent meeting with Trump. “It’s not only about training for the jobs of the future, people need to be thinking of investing in their current workforce so they can enable those people to do the same job using different equipment tomorrow,” she added.
One of the solutions for reskilling and preparing people for more technical work requirements is an expansion and acceleration of apprenticeships beyond skilled trade careers. Trump revealed that they have worked with the Department of Labor to put out $300 million of funding to encourage education and apprenticeships to be formed in industries such as cybersecurity, tech support, and healthcare.
Beyond reskilling the current workforce and apprenticeships, Trump brought up the need to “celebrate the other paths that exist” beyond the traditional four-year college degree path, whether through apprenticeships, credentials, or other training.
