What was Missing From the WIOA Hearing on March 5, 2025

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March 7, 2025 — Workforce boards in communities all across this country strive every day to connect work opportunities and jobseekers. They help businesses – tens of thousands of small and medium sized companies that are our economy’s backbone – fill their talent needs, to the tune of over 1 million jobs filled every year.

The House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development hearing held on Wednesday, March 5, Strengthening WIOA: Improving Outcomes for America’s Workforce, addressed such things as the economic costs of not connecting young people to education and/or work, the important role community colleges play in preparing workers for today’s economy, and the critical need for better data to support workforce development efforts. While these are all good aspects of the discussion to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the hearing did not explore all that workforce boards do to meet the needs of business and those trying to enter the labor market.

Several committee members noted the impact their local workforce boards have on their district’s economy; Ranking Member Alma Adams (D-NC) noted specifically that last year NAWB member CharlotteWorks generated over $224 million in economic impact while serving more than 40,000 people. That’s quite a return on public investment – but what would happen if CharlotteWorks is mandated to spend 50% of its resources to provide a one-size-fits-all type of training, regardless of an individual jobseeker’s needs?

That’s exactly what will happen if the previous Congress’s WIOA reauthorization proposal is introduced in its original form. The bill, A Stronger Workforce for America (ASWA), mandates local workforce boards spend 50% of their Adult and Dislocated Worker funds on training.

While there was an allowance in the final, nearly enacted version of ASWA to permit including supportive services including childcare or transportation supports, and career services including case management or career coaching to comprise part of that mandated threshold, the provision restricts a local workforce board’s ability to determine the best overall use of these funds.

ASWA proposes using a hammer when what’s needed is a multi-tool. Local boards need to be able to use any number of tools to bring talent and opportunity together – not just one mandated ‘go to’.

Instead of CharlotteWorks being able to respond to local worker and business needs in the ways determined by their customers, they will be forced to either authorize training when it’s not really needed or deny services to jobseekers because they don’t need training.

As I noted in a blog earlier this week, I am not aware of anyone involved in the workforce system that doesn’t support finding more ways for jobseekers to get the training and skills development they need to access opportunities. But if the end game here is to get more people trained, incentivize local boards to achieve that result as opposed to restricting their ability to fully serve their customers; consider leveraging other funds – public or private – to count toward a training goal; pass the bipartisan legislation that would open access to Pell Grant dollars for short-term training.

1.5 million jobs are filled each year with support from our nation’s public workforce system; that’s a job filled every five seconds of every business day. Yes, WIOA reauthorization should be responsive to the important topics covered in the House Subcommittee hearing. But it also needs to add to the tools a workforce board uses to meet this moment, not limit them.

– btl

Reporting on Strengthening WIOA: Improving Outcomes for America’s Workforce

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March 5, 2025 — The House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development held a hearing, Strengthening WIOA: Improving Outcomes for America’s Workforce.

Subcommittee Chairman Burgess Owens (R-UT) opened the hearing by noting, “a strong workforce development system is vital to growing our economy and providing economic opportunity for every American.” Owens further noted that reforms to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) are needed to help the public workforce system realize this promise and indicated his strong support for A Stronger Workforce for America Act (ASWA), the WIOA reauthorization proposal the committee and wider House advanced in the last Congress. In particular, Owens highlighted his home state of Utah’s One Door Policy, which integrates workforce development and human services in the state, and how aspects of ASWA have been modeled off of this systems approach.

Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC), the subcommittee Ranking Member, noted the bipartisan support for workforce development, and highlighted CharlotteWorks, one of North Carolina’s workforce boards and a NAWB member, which generated $225 million in economic value and served 42,000 jobseekers last year. She lauded many of the provisions contained in ASWA, especially provisions to help Opportunity Youth, young people ages 16-24 that are not in school and not employed. She noted that the public workforce system has been chronically underfunded, and that it needs more support to be effective.

The hearing featured testimony from several witnesses including Stephen Moret, President and CEO, Strada Education Foundation; Molly Dodge, Senior Vice President of Workforce and Careers, Ivy Tech Community College; Robert Sainz, Board Chair, National Youth Employment Coalition; and Nick Moore, Director of the state of Alabama’s Office of Education and Workforce Transformation.

Throughout the hearing both lawmakers on the subcommittee and witnesses voiced strong support for ASWA and highlighted various aspects of the legislation they particularly support. The committee especially focused on the WIOA Youth programming, and the economic impact of not engaging Opportunity Youth. Sainz noted that Opportunity Youth are not contributing to the tax base, more often rely on public assistance and public health programs, the likelihood of becoming a homeowner is much less likely, and they are more likely to end up involved in the justice system.

The National Youth Employment Coalition noted that there are currently 4.3 million Opportunity Youth. Sainz noted that their opportunities in life become more limited the longer it takes to reach them. He also noted the important role that supportive services – such as transportation, food, and housing – play in serving this population.

Sainz noted that the cost to incarcerate someone is $150,000 per year, while Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) noted that Pittsburgh’s Partner4Work, a NAWB member, serves WIOA youth, and that nearly 70% are employed after leaving the program. She lauded the program as a “school-to-prison pipeline disrupter.”

Sainz also highlighted the vital role of workforce boards. “They’re the ones that are actually saving lives,” he said. “This is not about putting people to work, it is about changing lives.” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) agreed with this sentiment noting that for participants, these programs “not only changed their life but it changed the lives of their families.”

Witness Moore noted that the public workforce system needs to be modernized and that too many WIOA funds are currently used on administration rather than direct services for participants. Alabama’s workforce system was held up as a model that should be replicated.

Other topics covered at the hearing included the need for improved data quality and related transparency, the potential impact of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) both on the public workforce system and labor markets, improving coordination with education systems, including Career and Technical Education (CTE), and more. WIOA’s central role in disaster relief was also highlighted, with witnesses and lawmakers discussing that 11 counties in North Carolina received support following the storms last year, through WIOA’s Dislocated Workers program. Sainz added that WIOA was instrumental in helping Californians deal with the aftermath of the recent wildfires and they also played a crucial role in supporting port workers during last year’s bridge collapse in Baltimore.

Adult education and literacy efforts were also raised, with members and witnesses discussing the role digital literacy skills have in today’s fast-changing economy.

Committee members also discussed how to improve training program quality and were eager to learn more about the Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL), where it was suggested that states need to review and update each of the ETPL systems for quality and relevance to the local labor market.

Our Job is More Than Training

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A robust workforce system requires well organized orchestration, customer centricity in its services, and agility for changing economic conditions

March 4, 2025 — Those of us in the workforce development space know that the 118th Congress came “just this close” to reauthorizing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) through a bill titled A Stronger Workforce for America (ASWA). While a logical starting place for this Congress’s WIOA reauthorization debates (the bill was a bipartisan, bicameral agreement), I invite policy makers to pause, step back a bit, and consider a bigger picture as they initiate these discussions.

A robust workforce system requires well organized orchestration, customer centricity in its services, and agility for changing economic conditions.

While ASWA did have some provisions which would enhance our nation’s public workforce system it was unfortunately based on an incomplete premise; namely that it exists primarily to be a conduit for training. Creating access to training is certainly a part of what workforce boards do, but they – as prescribed in WIOA’s purpose section – do so much more. The law was designed to “improve the quality of the workforce, reduce welfare dependency, increase economic self-sufficiency, meet the skill requirements of employers, and enhance the productivity and competitiveness of the Nation.”

Tomorrow (Wednesday, March 5), the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Higher Education & Workforce Development will hold this Congress’s first official hearing on WIOA entitled “Strengthening WIOA: Improving Outcomes for America’s Workforce”. I hope the witnesses paint the full picture of what workforce boards do in communities all across the nation to achieve those results noted above.

While there will certainly be questions and testimony about skills development, I hope the witnesses spend time outlining the convener role workforce boards play and the investment it takes to effectively play this role. Bringing stakeholders together – business leaders, training providers, community-based organizations, economic developers, educational entities, unions – to discern their region’s pathway to economic vitality is no small task. It takes – among other things – agility, negotiation, data analysis, and strategy. And it takes the investment of time and planning.  Without that investment, communities lack a shared future vision and the path to get there.

I hope Congress’s aperture can broaden to learn more about this essential role of workforce boards and understand the vital importance of shaping WIOA reauthorize to enhance it.

I also hope testimony is offered to reflect the value small and medium-sized businesses receive from using the WIOA system to address their talent needs. FutureWork Systems analysis of WIOA data from the last four reported quarters (July 2023-June 2024) reveals that over 1.5 million jobs were filled by employers leveraging WIOA in just this way – that’s a job filled every 5 seconds of every work day. That means that by the time you finish reading this sentence, a business will have hired a new employee because of WIOA.

Employers use this system every day to find talent; they also use it to upskill that talent once on the job. WIOA offers small businesses the ability to provide talent development to their teams without having to have a full-blown training department like bigger corporations may have. This service enables small business to find and grow its talent and compete in today’s rapidly changing environment. I hope Congress hears about this vital support for small businesses and sees how it is a critical part of the WIOA picture.

Through this hearing, I hope Congress understands the importance of the full variety of supports and resources WIOA offers to job seekers – including, but not limited to, training resources. Training is certainly a type of support accessible through WIOA; it can be just what’s needed to help someone enter the labor market. But (as referenced in the FutureWork Systems analysis) there were literally over a million people who found work from July 2023 – June 2024 because of WIOA who did not need training to make that move; they needed something else such as career services, resume development, technology skills, transportation, or other supportive services. And WIOA is designed – and should continue to be designed – to just that: meet the job seeker where they are and provide what’s needed, either directly or through partners.

I’m not saying training is not important; it is.

I’m not saying WIOA shouldn’t offer training; it should.

Do I think WIOA could or should be doing more to ensure training is offered when warranted and that that training leads to employment?  I sure do. But there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to training.

But to begin and end the understanding of WIOA as being only or even primarily about training is not just short-sighted; it’s inaccurate and misleading.

It fails to reflect the complexity within our nation’s public workforce system. Every day, thousands of career coaches help people enter the workforce through WIOA. Small businesses turn to WIOA to find their next employees and communities across this nation are working to understand where their economy is going and put together plans to meet that future.

So, I hope tomorrow’s hearing doesn’t continue the limited view from last year’s debate but rather paints the fuller picture so that WIOA reauthorization can truly improve all that our nation’s public workforce system does for the communities it serves.

U.S. Department of Labor Cancels TEN 21-24 to Implement DEI Executive Order

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February 28, 2025 — Last night, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) issued a notice cancelling the Department of Labor (DOL)/ETA Training and Employment Notice (TEN) 21-24, issued on January 22, to implement President Trump’s Executive Order (EO).

The EO, which was issued on January 20, called for the termination of all “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government.” Federal agencies were directed to terminate programs, positions, grants and contracts related to DEI. The TEN 21-24 was issued to formally implement the EO. It is unclear when or if new guidance will be issued, but NAWB will continue to monitor the situation and keep you posted on any developments.

We held listening sessions in late January for its members and provided the results of these sessions to DOL. NAWB members expressed concern and confusion about how their efforts to reach all potential workers – including those hardest to serve – could be affected by the order.

“We are glad to see DOL take swift action to reverse course, given the unintended consequences and widespread confusion caused by the initial executive order,” said Brad Turner-Little, president and CEO of the National Association of Workforce Boards. “Our members – workforce boards from across the nation and its territories – look forward to working with the department on our shared goals of strengthening the economy by increasing labor force participation and filling the 7.6 million vacant jobs in America.”