In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama made clear his commitment to getting Americans back to work. As he put it, job creation is "our No. 1 focus for 2010." That is why we must act swiftly to ensure that American workers have the education, skills training, and supports they need to compete and thrive in a 21st century global job market, and that is why we have convened this hearing today to examine the future of the Workforce Investment Act, as we move toward reauthorization of this important program.

A stronger workforce investment system for a stronger economy: hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. United States Senate, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, second session ... February 24, 2010.

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With the United States' choice for future employment being "high skills or low wages," the challenge to business and industry is to build, in partnership with public agencies, a cohesive management system that would invest in three critical areas of the work force: building a strong foundation of basic skills to help noncollege-bound youth enter the work force; providing continuing education and training for workers; and building a better "second chance" training and education system for working-age youth and adults who face special barriers to employment. To meet this challenge, the National Alliance of Business (NAB) proposes that business and government in each state and local community develop a "work force investment system" that links existing training and education institutions in an effective partnership to build a highly skilled, high performance labor force. If such a system is to be real and permanent, it should be built on guiding principles such as ease of access, broad inclusiveness, public-private partnership, market base, and concerted action at the national, state, and local levels. A proposed work force investment system model for the future couples delivery system reform with a broader role in the labor market for that system. Such a system would be characterized by a common point or points of intake, individualized assessment of clients to determine their service needs, a form of case management to see participants through the system, and a common system of placement that employers could readily access. Present federal and federal-state programs could be integrated into such a program, and local businesses would take the initiative to structure local solutions to problems confronting the mainstream work force. This model is appropriate and could be attainable for the U.S. labor market. (This report describes several state work force investment systems and local programs as well as the Training and Enterprise Councils system in Great Britain.) (KC)