DOL and Ed make it official, Congress stalls on IDing workforce funding cuts, and $1.6 billion in grants listings.
Plus, the Trump Administration's interesting signals on manufacturing, the Summer Grants Blitz arrives, and what's up with the missing workforce money.
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Hello
Greetings from D.C., where I’m preparing for the most important role of my lifetime: dressing as Godzilla for a six year old’s birthday party this weekend. Yes, this is why there have been more Godzilla references here as of late. Yes, this is going to be one of the happiest days of my life. Yes, I forgot about my own birthday I was so excited about it. #Blessed
Let’s make some jokes and talk about workforce stuff.
Toplines
News you should know affecting money that gets people to work.
Ed and DOL take it to the next level, might get a dog, probably going to struggle to do workforce things together.
Of all the things I forecasted on Tuesday, I did not list the Supreme Court opening the door for the Department of Education’s workforce programs to move across The Mall to the Department of Labor.
The open secret I have been writing about for months finally became official on Tuesday. The move will transfer administration of Education’s chunk of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, America’s main pot of workforce cash, and Ed’s adult education programs. This is the type of move that kinda makes sense on paper. “On paper” is not real life, which typically requires money, people, and most importantly, people who know what the hell they are doing.
My understanding is there is very little of all three resources at DOL—and possibly even less in the near future. Just because both DOL and Ed have the word “workforce” associated with their programs does not mean they deal with same issues and pressures. DOL has very few, if any (after cuts), people who have significant experience with operating Ed’s workforce programs and—almost just as important—the different body of stakeholders they interact with at the state and local level.
Separately, DOL sounds like it is hurting for staff. In what is not at all an insignificant development in this Administration, DOL has signaled that they do not plan on cutting more staff. It’s been fewer than four months since I heard DOGE wanted most of the agency’s staff gone—so let me re-emphasize to you that it’s big the Administration settling for only 20 percent staff cuts at an agency with DOL’s portfolio.
Twenty percent is still a fifth of the agency, however. I have heard more about some buckling in the workforce side’s ability to get things done with much fewer resources. There were glitches in the last couple week’s apprenticeship developments that get caught in an environment with more people, even if they’re moving fast. Adding an entire other agency’s workload won’t make that better, especially thanks to developments like new line-by-line reporting requirements.
I’ll note that I’m not 100 percent sure that the battle is over on whether this move happens. I have heard from Edworld folks who feel very strongly that there are legal bars against this move. I don’t agree with them having drafted and put together several agency partnerships. There are quite a few arrangements like this where one agency buys the expertise or work of another. I’m always happy to take a look at some specific language or law if you think I’m wrong and correct it here (email nick@jobsthat.work), but it looks like the agencies hit the right bases based on my experience.
“Technically OK under peculiarities of administrative law” is not the same as “A good idea with this current staff level,” mind you. Given staff issues won’t get better in this administration—and the baked-in Trumpian struggles with execution and being too whim-based for its own good—I think there is more reason to be skeptical than not.
DOL and SBA print something, sign it, seem a little worried about manufacturing.
On Wednesday, DOL and the Small Business Administration announced that they had reached an agreement to “to cultivate a pipeline of skilled workers to support domestic producers” via things like apprenticeship.
Key detail about the agreement: it doesn’t appear to really do anything the agencies couldn’t do without it.
The most substantive piece of the agreement is some sharing of data between DOL and SBA, but on the surface, I’m not sure if I see anything that might not have been possible to share under routine uses of federal records (if records are involved at all). DOL will share with manufacturers what appears to be publicly available information like “Where are jobs centers?” and “O*Net stuff.” There also is a provision where DOL commits to what sounds like sending emails introducing SBA officials to grantees and people in the workforce space.
A lot of agency trumpeting and fanfare for this-could-have-been-an-email agreement-signing events aren’t unheard of in D.C. The comments and context of this one are rather interesting, though.
From The Daily Caller’s story on the signing event:
“The president is reviving our manufacturing industry that was neglected for so long,” [Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer] said at the event. . . . “Our workers were tied up in red tape and burdened by economic bad policy.”
That particular line of retroactive attack struck me as interesting in ways that I think a couple of excerpts can help unpack.
From Forbes in December:
Factory construction in the U.S. hit its highest point in half a century, according to an August 2024 report by Moody’s Analytics. This is due to booming demand for semiconductors and billions of dollars in [Biden-era] investments from the federal government as part of legislation passed in 2022.
Emphasis mine. And from Columbia Business School earlier this month:
The [Too-Tall Billiam Is Incredibly Attractive Act] deals its biggest blow to US manufacturing. The [Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act] Advanced Manufacturing and Advanced Energy Project Credits jumpstarted domestic battery, solar panel, and wind turbine production, creating jobs, protecting supply chains, and decreasing reliance on Chinese imports.
Emphasis mine again. And from the Institute of Supply Management, quoting a survey from the powerful National Association of Manufacturers:
According to the latest NAM quarterly outlook survey of manufacturers, 89 percent said that [President Trump’s] tariffs had increased their cost of doing business during the last quarter, [NAM Managing Vice President of Policy Charles Crain] said. The manufacturing industry is indeed facing uncertainty, he said, which makes it harder to make long-term investment decisions that drive manufacturing growth. . . . [T]here are other barriers, like the need to reskill workers, to creating more manufacturing jobs in the U.S., he said.
Emphasis mine one last time. To be clear, I’m not affirmatively saying this announcement is a function of some Administration insecurity right now about losing manufacturing as a result of its core economic policies and legislation.
What I will say, however, is that the manufacturing appears to be seeding media coverage with “skills gap” narratives to try to get more commitments on talent.
The Administration and its allies don’t appear to have answers for manufacturers on the cost of tariffs. Or ideas for how they’re going to make up for taking an axe to some lucrative funding from the last administration and most of America’s federal workforce programs. And the saws of White House policy leaders have hemmed in agency staff from making any real policy commitments beyond doing less and hoping for the best.
All this makes for interesting context for an event meant to look like a big deal even if there really isn’t any policy underneath it.
Also interesting is the contrast of commitments from the two agencies. SBA lists eight “relevant programs” to the agreement; DOL’s “relevant programs” aren’t programs at all but the Veterans’ Employment Training Service (misnamed by the agreement as the “Veteran Employment Training Service) and the Employment and Training Administration.
If you want to make a supposition as to why the two agencies have things listed very differently, ETA administers most of the federal workforce programs the White House has proposed killing. VETS' programs would survive under the White House budget, but it would look strange(r) if their programs were listed out and ETA’s were not.
This week’s grants listings number: $1.6 billion.
Added some new HHS money and a new state opportunity.
Behind the paywall.
A House committee wants $36 billion in cuts to workforce, education, and health.
The Education, Labor, and Commerce secretaries’ “Our programs are bad” report is due.
Missing money and preparing for The Summer Grants Blitz.