Thanks, Deputy Secretary Su, for bringing us collectively at this time.
Offering good jobs for ALL employees is a vital dialog. We’ve lived by an historic second. The pandemic modified our each day lives, together with the way in which we work. American employees are in search of new abilities and high quality jobs, and U.S. employers are remodeling how they do enterprise.
Growing entry to the brand new, high-quality jobs of the longer term and giving employees the coaching they should succeed are important for increasing and diversifying our nation’s workforce.
On the similar time, the Biden-Harris Administration has been making once-in-a-generation investments to rebuild our infrastructure, present high-speed web to each family, assist our home semiconductor business, and fight local weather change.
Each the Commerce Division and your complete administration are dedicated to making sure that underrepresented employees and companies can partake within the unprecedented alternatives that these investments are bringing. We’re working to construct a extra inclusive financial system that grows from the underside up and the center out.
And as a descendant of certainly one of America’s first Black patent-holders, I perceive the significance of supporting employees, entrepreneurs, innovators, and companies from traditionally underserved communities. That’s precisely what we’re aiming to do on the Commerce Division.
During the last 12 months, our workforce consulted with specialists from enterprise, labor, assume tanks, the White Home, and the Division of Labor on the drivers of job high quality.
Along with the Labor Division, we revealed a set of Good Jobs Rules, which create a framework and shared imaginative and prescient round what constitutes good jobs. Thanks to Secretary Walsh and Deputy Secretary Su for partnering with us on that.
The rules set clear expectations in regards to the jobs that we count on to be created by our historic investments.
The Commerce Division additionally launched a Job High quality Toolkit, to offer methods for small- and medium-sized employers to enhance employees’ experiences, constructing on the Good Jobs Rules. And we’re actively deploying the toolkit to our nationwide small and medium producers by our Manufacturing Extension Partnership program to assist all of them turn into employers of alternative.
Growing employee satisfaction and engagement can translate into elevated enthusiasm for work, decrease absenteeism, increased retention, improved services, increased buyer satisfaction, and elevated revenues.
However our division’s work to advance fairness and job high quality doesn’t finish there.
The Minority Enterprise Improvement Company has been arduous at work supporting the expansion and competitiveness of minority-owned enterprise enterprises and entrepreneurs.
MBDA’s new $93.5 million Capital Readiness Program – the most important of its type within the historical past of the Commerce Division – goes assist minority and different underserved entrepreneurs launch and scale their companies. Jumpstarting the following technology of various entrepreneurs will spur innovation and assist us construct a extra resilient financial system.
On the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace, the Council on Inclusive Innovation is increasing the scope of the innovation ecosystem to succeed in communities which have traditionally been overlooked.
And final summer season, the Financial Improvement Administration introduced the 32 awardees of the $500 million Good Jobs Problem, which is funded by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. This system is increasing entry to the workforce and enhance labor participation with a give attention to job high quality and fairness.
In Birmingham, Alabama, the Good Jobs Problem funded a partnership that can present marginalized communities with pathways into high-quality healthcare jobs. An $11 million award to the Hampton Roads Workforce Council will construct expertise pipelines for clear power, resilience and “blue financial system” jobs within the Hampton Roads area, dwelling to the one of many largest African American populations within the nation.
I’m proud that the work we’re doing – each on the Commerce Division and throughout your complete Biden Administration – to enhance each job high quality and entry to good jobs.
I additionally hope that you simply’ll proceed to interact with our division to tell us in regards to the challenges you’re dealing with, and the way Commerce can higher serve the employees you characterize.
Collectively, we’re securing an equitable and affluent future for all Individuals.
Thanks.
