In an effort to improve the nation's work force, President Obama will unveil today a plan to provide 500,000 community-college students with industry-recognized credentials that will help them secure jobs in manufacturing.
The president will formally announce the new credentialing system during a speech at Northern Virginia Community College, in Alexandria.
Students will earn the credential through a new manufacturing-skills certification system endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers. The credential is applicable to all sectors in the manufacturing industry and can be stacked with other training to help students toward an associate degree.
The new credentialing system is expected to alleviate frustration that both employers and students experience, administration officials said. In the past, students often spent time and money on training that had little value to potential employers, while employers had difficulty identifying which credentials were of value in hiring and promotion.
Manufacturing has led the economic recovery over the past two years with over 230,000 jobs added since the beginning of 2010, Obama administration officials said. But there is a need for additional workers because 2.7 million manufacturing employees are 55 or older and likely to leave the labor force in the next 10 years.
The credentialing project is an expansion of a pilot program financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that began in 2009 at four community colleges in four states. A year later, the project expanded to additional community colleges and states through financing from the Lumina Foundation for Education.
The system is now in 30 states as a for-credit program of study. This will allow students the flexibility to travel across state lines for jobs, increase the range of employers familiar with the credential, and improve workers' earning power, administration officials said.
