CEI Responds to Secretary of Labor Acosta’s Comments on Job Creation

Ahead of President Trump’s “Made in America” roundtable event, Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta offered comments on job creation.

Competitive Enterprise Institute Policy Analyst Trey Kovacs offered the following response:

“Secretary Acosta’s remarks focusing on how to develop a highly skilled workforce is a breath of fresh air. Instead of the Department of Labor regulating jobs out of existence, as was the case under the Obama administration, the current administration is seeking to prepare individuals to jump back into the workforce and add skills to their resume. As Secretary Acosta mentions, there is a skills gap between the talents workers have and what employers need, which partly explains why there currently millions of job vacancies around the country.

“It is important to focus any effort to provide skills training on removing any barriers that may exist on employers and unions from offering job training to workers. A centralized plan to better develop the American workforce is misguided. Government is unlikely to know the skills needed for today’s worker, let alone the jobs of the future. A top-down program will not successfully prepare individuals for the jobs of today or tomorrow.

“Equally imperative, it is crucial that the private sector play its part in remedying the skills gap. Secretary Acosta states that employers are having trouble finding the workers they need. This means employers need to use a portion of their profits to invest in worker training. Unions can start acting as a partner with business, as opposed to an adversary, by channeling more of their members’ dues payments into providing skills rather than spending big money on politics in order to get special privileges from government.”