Dear Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McCarthy, and Leader McConnell,
Thank you for your ongoing efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and help an economy reeling from the public health crisis. As vaccinations increase, businesses reopen, and families start to resume pre-pandemic activities, our industries are committed to a robust and inclusive economic recovery.
With a generational shift in occupational roles economy-wide and accelerated level of digital transformation brought on by COVID-19, we have dueling problems—workers unable to find good-paying jobs that fit their skills and employers struggling to hire skilled workers for in-demand and emerging roles. Strong federal investment in the long-term success of America's workforce is critical to solving both challenges and address this skills mismatch.
For businesses across industries, this mismatch existed prior to the pandemic and was only exacerbated by the crisis:
Congressional investments in workforce training and supports are essential to position workers for the new, skilled jobs that are going to be part of a different post-pandemic economy and to meet industry demand. And workers themselves agree – 82% want increased public investment in skills training to help people find new jobs in response to the pandemic and 81% want to see increased investments in skills training in the long-term.
The undersigned businesses and industry associations urge you to support investments in workforce and skills as part of any economic recovery legislation. Specifically, we urge you to:
We are committed to helping workers thrive in the changing economic landscape. Given the scale of change, government investment, assistance, and incentives are needed now more than ever to prepare the workforce for the economy of the future. We stand ready to work with you to build a strong and resilient economy.
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