U.S. Secretary of Labor

Washington, D.C.

Thomas E. Perez is the 26th secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. Prior to this, he was assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. Perez received a bachelor's degree from Brown University, and a master's of public policy and a law degree from Harvard University.

When you speak about workforce development, how exactly do you define it? What are your highest priorities?

Workforce development is all about connecting ready-to-work Americans with ready-to-be-filled jobs. That means helping people acquire the skills to compete for good jobs that pay fair wages and will allow more Americans to punch their ticket to the middle class. But it also means partnering with employers to ensure training programs are designed to give workers the skills they need to fill actual jobs that exist today. I like to call this our "Match.com" role—we want to play matchmaker between employers and job seekers.

As we take a look at our programs, we're learning that there's a lot being done right on this front, but there's also a lot that could be done better. That's why the administration is doing a top-to-bottom review of workforce programs to make sure we're getting the best possible return on our investment. This review is focused on a few key areas:

• expanding and strengthening partnerships with employers so they can seamlessly use the workforce system

• making the system as easy as possible for job seekers to get the skills they need

• recognizing innovation, rewarding it, and taking it to scale

• imploding stovepipes across the federal government so that we're working in a coordinated, collaborative way to best serve job seekers

• lifting up the critical role of apprenticeships.

Where do you see the greatest need for workforce development programs, and what programs have you instituted to address those needs and challenges?

The workforce development needs in America are constantly shifting—they're just as likely to be impacted by huge changes in the global economy as they are by a small change in the local labor market. To be able to adapt to those changes, we need to have an incredibly dynamic system that utilizes the strengths of partnerships at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

We've seen this in action since the Great Recession in 2007, with the national network of nearly 2,500 American Job Centers serving an average of more than 14 million people each year, even as funding was declining. During this same time period, 81 percent of unemployed training graduates found a new job within three months and went on to earn 18.6 percent more than those who didn't complete training—so we know these programs work.

But there's no question there are segments of our population for whom the rungs of the ladder of opportunity are too far apart. Even as the overall unemployment rate for all Americans dropped in June to 6.1 percent, for African Americans (10.1 percent), Latinos (7.8 percent), and young people (13.3 percent), the rate remains much higher. The rate of long-term unemployment—those who have been out of work for six months or longer—also remains unacceptably high.

The Labor Department oversees a number of programs that aim to help close these gaps. Job Corps is a great example. The program, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this summer, is one of the crown jewels of the war on poverty, and it's still effective today.

The program provides at-risk young people—70 percent of whom are students of color—with a structured residential environment where they get the support and training they need to move into good jobs. Last year, more than 35,000 graduates moved into a job, post-secondary education, or advanced skills training. Another 39,000 got their high school diploma or GED, or completed career technical training. Another program called YouthBuild helps young people work toward their GED or high school diploma while learning job skills by building affordable housing in their communities.

Earlier this year, we announced a new Ready to Work Partnership grant program that provided more than $150 million in funding to states for strategies like re-employment assessments and on-the-job training. These grants help expand initiatives that we know are particularly effective at helping the long-term unemployed. This is incredibly important because recent research shows that even when the long-term unemployed have the same—or even greater—experiences and skills in their field, they are less likely to get called back for interviews than workers who have been out of work for shorter periods of time.

The common theme in all of these programs is that they are driven by the needs of local employers and designed to meet the needs of local communities.

There is much talk about the knowledge economy. How can the talent development profession contribute to the goals that the Labor Department is undertaking in the area of workforce development?

There's no question that today's jobs, regardless of the industry, require different skills and different knowledge than they used to. Take manufacturing—I say frequently that there is a bright future for companies and workers who want to make things here in the United States. But that doesn't mean manufacturing jobs are going to look the same as they did in the past. In fact, if you set foot on as many shop floors as I have in the last year, you'll quickly see just how different they are.

Where a high school diploma and a buddy on the line may have gotten your foot in the door two decades ago, modern manufacturing requires specific skills and knowledge that employers expect to see on day 1. To ensure the infrastructure is in place to provide training on those specific skills, we need everyone at the table—especially the training and development community—to help develop courses, materials, training modules, and identify the credentials that matter most.

How are you working to ensure the apprenticeships and other workforce development programs are scalable?

Identifying what works and taking it to scale is a crucial part of the future of the public workforce system. We're working closely with workforce professionals to create robust communities that allow for peer-to-peer sharing of promising practices. We're also creating incentives for states and regions to adopt strategies that have worked elsewhere within a given sector, which not only creates more robust partnerships, but which makes scaling programs that much easier.

Leveraging technology can go a long way as well. Many of our Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grantees are creating online courses that can be remotely accessed by students across the country, and all of the educational materials created with these grants are being made available for adaptive reuse through a creative commons license. We're in the process of rolling out a central repository for all of these materials, which will remove some of the barriers to getting programs up and running more quickly in response to local labor market needs.

How can mentoring programs be incorporated in workforce development programs moving forward?

One of the most interesting workforce development trends we saw during the recession and after was the growth of job clubs—informal peer networking and support groups. Many of these groups are run by volunteers out of nonprofit and faith-based community organizations, and they provide critical help for the unemployed.

There is remarkable value in knowing that other people are experiencing similar challenges. These groups also help generate job referrals and other benefits we associate with networking. What we've found is that within these groups, there is an incredible desire to give back. Even when someone finds a job, they continue to attend meetings and attempt to help others through mentoring and other means.