1 Ready to Work Providing opportunities in industries such as health care, retail, and hospitality, where lower-skilled and limited-English-proficient workers are concentrated, to develop their skills and enable them to access pathways for advancement to better jobs and careers would be good for employers and good for American workers. Such opportunities could include well-structured apprenticeships and career pathway programs to “upskill” low-wage employees into higher-skilled jobs with higher earnings, greater investment by employers in training of entry-level workers into higher-skilled positions, and more publically available career readiness tools geared towards working adult learners. Our Administration is taking initial steps in partnership with innovators, workers, and employers: Launching a $25 Million Online Skills Academy. An online skills academy will leverage technology to offer open online courses of study, helping students earn credentials online through participating accredited institutions, and will expand access to curricula designed to speed the time to credit and completion. Building off the burgeoning marketplace of free and open-licensed learning resources, including content developed through the TAACCCT grant program accessible through DOL’s online repository, the online skills academy will enable workers to get more education and training they need to advance their careers, particularly by developing skills in demand by employers. Working with Unions and Labor-Management Partnerships to Expand Quality Training Programs to Provide Pathways to Middle-Class Jobs. Working with ED, over 45 unions and labor management partnerships are pledging to expand access to their training programs and share lessons of these programs with others around the country. New Tools for Job Seekers and Personalized Career Guidance. Following the Data Jam for Job Seekers, several innovative companies have committed to building new tools to help job seekers better understand their options so they can make smarter investments of their time and resources when trying to get jobs. For example, Glassdoor has launched a new open-source map for job seekers to see where there are open jobs county-by-county across the country. 21