1 Ready to Work 1.4 THE OPPORTUNITY AHEAD: A CALL TO ACTION FOR AMERICAN SKILLS AND JOBS Applying the Job-Driven Checklist systematically across all federal employment and training programs will allow those programs to focus scarce federal dollars on promising and proven strategies for getting people back to work. Federal employment and training programs will use them to guide their programs’ priorities and operations to the extent feasible within the law and the programs’ missions through competitive grants and other administrative actions. These competitive grants and administrative actions will incentivize investments by employers in apprenticeships or on-the-job training, industry-education partnerships, and industry-driven credentials and job matching. Industry investment and employer hiring based on the three strategies described below multiplies the impact of federal training investments and focuses individual choices and training program design on in-demand jobs, expanding opportunities for all American workers. We’ve seen what can be accomplished when we come together. Over the past three years, the Joining Forces Initiative led by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden has garnered efforts from employers resulting in more than 540,000 jobs and numerous more commitments from iconic companies and large and small businesses to train and create stable employment for veterans and military families, and launched an online tool created by VA and DOL for employers and veterans seeking jobs featuring a skills translator, resume builder and job openings to help train and match veterans into good jobs. Where can job-driven training strategies change the trajectory of economic opportunity? Where can American employers, workers, families, communities, and taxpayers achieve the highest return together by proven and innovative job-driven approaches applied in focused ways? This report recommends three opportunities for a call to action: 1 Fielding a Full Team. Bringing 3 million ready-to-work Americans back into jobs after being unemployed for more than six months 2 Upskilling America. Helping 24 million low-wage, lower-skill, hard-working Americans to upskill themselves into better jobs 3 Tech Workforce. Diversifying the ways that Americans of any age, in any part of the country, and from any background can be trained for half a million jobs unfilled today in IT occupations, and hundreds of thousands more that need to be filled soon Fielding a Full Team: Getting Long-Term Unemployed Americans Back to Work Today, 3.1 million long-term unemployed Americans – many with extensive work histories – struggle 15 to find work in jobs that use their skills. Those Americans are ready to work, now or soon – they just need to be matched to jobs fitting their skills and sometimes given targeted training to fill the gaps. 15 Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014). 18