Trump promotes job training as employers search for workers

Good4Utah | Good4Utah - August 16, 2018

President Trump is echoing what manufacturing employers have expressed about the labor shortage here in Utah.

Promoting a robust economy, President Donald Trump pressed U.S. companies and trade associations on Thursday to enhance their job training programs as employers search for qualified skilled workers to fill vacancies.

“We need people with training,” Trump declared.

At an event in the East Room, Trump told corporate leaders and workers that the nation’s students and workers need more opportunities to attain apprenticeships, vocational opportunities and job training. The president said nearly two dozen companies and trade organizations had agreed to sign a pledge to provide the training for their workforce during the next five years.

“Companies are pouring back into our country – companies that frankly left 10 and 20 years ago – and they’re coming back and we need people to work for those companies,” Trump said. “We need talented people. We need people with training.”

 The president’s 2016 campaign included a pitch to help the “forgotten men and women” who have suffered amid globalization and a shifting economy. The pledge and an executive order Trump signed creating a national council for U.S. workers and a workforce policy advisory board aim to address the needs of manufacturing workers as the president has engaged in trade disputes that have rattled the economy.

The White House said the “Pledge to America’s Workers” would provide at least 3.8 million new career opportunities for students and workers over the next five years, including apprenticeships, work-based learning and continuing education. Read more….