Dive Brief:
- The Department of Labor announced the creation of $100 million in America's Promise Job-Driven Grants to encourage new partnerships between training providers and employers in industries that are struggling to find talent, including information technology, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, financial services and educational services.
- The four-year grants are meant to prepare new talent for fields that currently depend on the H-1B visa program to meet workforce needs.
- The program will depend on "a variety of work-based learning," including apprenticeships, on-the-job training, paid work experience and paid internships. Additionally, the grant will use a mix of classroom style learning and tech-enabled training programs.
Dive Insight:
The grant competition aims to increase opportunities for interested workers to obtain tuition-free training for high-skilled industries, expand employer involvement in such programs and leverage resources from both public and private entities.
Programs that receive funding will use "individual assessments to determine the best strategies" to both accelerate learning and include longer-term training programs in order to help employers meet talent demands, the DOL press release notes.
The grants are funded partly by fees paid by employers to bring foreign workers to the U.S. under the H-1B program.