Al Franken: “I would like to return the kind words of my colleague from Delaware and thank him for his leadership in this whole field…”

“I would like to return the kind words of my colleague from Delaware and thank him for his leadership in this whole field of manufacturing and filling the skills gap that we see all over this country and getting young people and getting people in midcareer trained up to do jobs that manufacturers and people in the IT industry and other industries need to fill. I rise today to recognize the very first week of November as the very first ever National Apprenticeship Week. I want to talk a little bit about the benefits of apprenticeship training programs, about what I hear in my State of Minnesota, and about my bill, the Community College to Career Fund Act, which would expand apprenticeship training programs through partnerships between employers and community and technical colleges. When I travel around my State--and I am sure the Presiding Officer hears this in Louisiana as well--I hear over and over again that employers are desperate to hire good people with the right skills for jobs that pay well. Today there are over 6,500 open manufacturing jobs in my State. And other sectors such as IT, health care--and mechanics for the aerospace industry, for airplanes--these sectors in our economy are experiencing similar problems. They cannot find workers with the necessary training and the right skills to fit jobs that are there. These jobs are there. This is what is called the skills gap.…”