Emily Stover DeRocco Speech
Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities Capitol Forum
March 30, 2004
Washington, DC
Thank you, [Antonio].
It means a lot to me-and to Secretary Chao-to have this chance to speak to you and to work with you.
I am a lawyer by training, not a demographer. But let me say that there are times when I feel that I've earned a graduate degree in demographics just by working at the Department of Labor. Each data-point from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a little dot of color added to the astonishing and ever-changing portrait of the American people. And no area of demographics is more interesting or surprising than America's Hispanic population.
Hispanics now comprise the largest minority group in America . .
A larger community than the populations of Spain or Argentina or Canada . . .
Growing by 1.7 million a year, or 5,000 people a day . . . With a purchasing power of $630 billion, bigger than the economies of Brazil or Mexico.
Hispanics are increasingly a source of entrepreneurship and job creation, with almost 2 million Hispanic-owned firms in the United States. BLS reports that Hispanics make up one out of every three new workers in the country. By 2025, this proportion will be one out of every two new workers.
We have seen the future of the American workforce, and it is Latino.
Our American workforce must take its place in a transforming economy and in a world much different than the one we knew before September 11, 2001. Still, because of President's Bush's leadership, America is safer from terrorism. Consumers and businesses are showing greater confidence. Productivity is reaching stratospheric levels.
While job creation has yet to match the pace of productivity, there is reason for optimism-this economy is getting stronger every day. Mortgage rates are at their lowest levels in 40 years. Inflation is negligible. Exports increased 21 percent last quarter, which means Americans are selling more goods abroad and creating more jobs for Americans here at home.
It is for these reasons that surveys show that the American people are growing increasingly confident. Discouraged workers who have left the workforce are filtering back in. Employers who've been holding back on hiring are now seeking new workers.
But let me be clear about one thing.
President Bush will not be satisfied until every American looking for work has found a job. And not just any job. The challenge for the 21st Century is to anticipate demand, so that Americans have the right skills to succeed in the right job.
America has always prospered by anticipating the future, replacing antiquated jobs with new jobs unimagined just a few years before. We all want to keep American jobs. But in a changing world, they cannot be the same jobs. If we tried that, Americans would be working today at typewriters instead of computers. They would be scriveners instead of software programmers. (pronounced exactly how it looks - can substitute "scribe" if you prefer)
That's one of many things I like about this group. You get this. You live it. You understand that to be prepared, we must train for a new economy we cannot yet fully imagine.
To do that, we must be more than demographers. We must try to be futurists, to try to anticipate what the U.S. economy will look like in 2014, and in 2024.
As always there is much we cannot predict. But this much we do know. Over the next 20 years, skilled jobs will be on the rise as never before.
The President has proposed increasing support for America's community colleges, so they can, in his words, "train workers for industries that are creating the most new jobs."
That is why this Administration, since 2001, has implemented a 36 percent increase in funding to schools. That is also why President Bush has insisted that these increases be coupled with higher standards.
No group in America has a higher commitment to these goals than the HACU. Your commitment to success in education extends from kindergarten, through graduate school, and into the working world.
You understand, better than anyone, that college is the great leveler, the best route to realizing the American Dream.
We know what's needed. That's all well and good. But here's some bad news, news you have placed on the table for public discussion. If education is the route to the American Dream, then for many Hispanics the way forward is full of roadblocks.
Your HACU website informs us that:
- Only 22.4 percent of Hispanic high-school graduates from 18 to 21 were enrolled in college in 2000, little better than half the rate for non-Hispanic whites.
- By 2000, for persons 25 years old and over, only 10.6 percent of Hispanics had completed a college education.
- By 2000, only 7.3 percent of Hispanic 25-year-olds and over had obtained bachelor's degrees.
- Worse, a positive trend line just doesn't seem to be there.
- College enrollment rates for Hispanics 18 to 24 have only increased slightly, from 16 percent in 1980 to 22 percent in 1997. This happened while white, non-Hispanic college enrollment rates increased from 25 percent in 1980 to 41 percent.
- Over these years the disparity between these two groups has actually widened, from 9 percent to 19 percent.
Correcting this disparity is more than a moral responsibility. It is a strategic necessity, one that leaves little room for turf wars. The work of the Department of Labor must mesh with the work of the Department of Education. And the goals of government must work hand-in glove with the needs of industry.
This may sound like common sense to you, but it is a seachange from the way government has worked in the past. As Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training, I am tasked with overseeing the nation's $15 billion public workforce investment system. We are now engaged in a strategic effort to link the resources of that $15 billion system to job opportunities that exist in growing industries.
To demonstrate how to do that, the President created the High-Growth Job Training Initiative. This Initiative focuses on a dozen key industries that are projected to add many new jobs or experience significant transformation in the skills required of workers in those jobs. This is an information-intense initiative. We are studying these industries upside down and inside out. We are doing everything possible to know where they are going and what they need, far ahead of time.
We are not using crystal balls to get this information either. We are using the traditional method of meeting face to face with hundreds of executives, educators and workforce professionals. We are simply talking to lots of people who have a pretty good idea of how the economic future is shaping up.
This human intelligence that we collect is already helping us identify solutions. In fact, just two weeks ago, Secretary Chao announced the first set of solutions focused in the health care industry. These solutions will help demonstrate how our workforce system can help meet the huge demand for skilled health care workers in the next few years. In turn, we will help ensure that Americans continue receiving the best health care in the world.
What really makes the High Growth Job Training Initiative effective are the partnerships that unite the workforce system, the business community, and the education system.
You are all familiar with how this works. Through these partnerships workers can attend classes at local community colleges or other training providers in which the curriculum is designed by the business partners to specifically develop the skills needed to succeed in that industry.
Because jobs in today's economy are increasingly specialized, training for those jobs must be specialized as well. That sounds obvious, but let me assure you that without the proper input from industry, a lot of workers will not receive the specialized training they need.
In all of these programs, our challenge is to be the matchmakers to the markets of the future-training today for the jobs and opportunities of tomorrow.
What might those jobs and opportunities be?
One of these industries will surely be the geospatial technology industry. I know, the first time I heard that, I said, "the geo-spatial what industry?"
If you've recently been in a rental car in a strange city, you know what I am talking about. I refer to a cluster of commercial activities growing out of the Global Positioning System. This new and still undefined industry has a current worldwide market of about $5 billion, and is growing by as much as 13 percent a year, a growth rate that is expected to continue throughout this decade.
Biotech is another rapidly growing part of the economy. Between 1992 and 2001, the number of jobs in biotechnology doubled; biotech jobs will grow by nearly 1 million between 2000 and 2010, with double-digit increases in jobs such as pharmaceutical manufacturing and biological technicians. Biotech companies have raised $70 billion over the past five years to support investments in their research, development, and production activities.
Geospatial and biotechnology are both cutting edge industries, but even more mature industries are experiencing tremendous job growth.
The most dramatic growth is occurring in the health care field. Today it accounts for about 13 percent, or $1 trillion, of our annual GDP, and provides more than 11 million jobs. Take a look at the projections of the 20 fastest growing occupations and you'll find fully half of them in the health care field. With the baby boomers approaching retirement, and people living longer today than every before, the need for skilled workers to provide medical care will increase substantially.
In geospatial, biotechnology, health care, information technology, and many other fields, many jobs are going unfilled because there just aren't enough people with the right skills to fill them.
Other hot areas of future job growth that could go begging for workers will likely be in advanced manufacturing, automotive, construction, energy, financial services, hospitality, transportation and retail.
Some of these sectors sound sexy. Some, frankly, do not. But make no mistake, no matter how they sound, all of them are cutting edge.
Consider advanced manufacturing. Keep in mind, this is not about manning an assembly line. It is about designing and operating robotics. Hospitality, you say? Information technology and global best practices are shaping this industry into clusters of services far beyond mere hotels.
Or consider the automotive sector- for to work with automobiles today is to be a certain kind of computer expert. Or consider retail, where big box stores have so reinvented the science of inventory management that the Department of Defense is now seeking their advice on how to streamline global military logistics.
In all of these areas, the job postings of the future are going to be for knowledge workers.
To create such a knowledge workforce will require a tremendous national effort. And to ensure that Hispanics are a successful part of this knowledge workforce, you all must be a partner in that national effort.
You will make it possible for Hispanics to overcome the language and literacy barriers that so many face. And you will supply the on-going education and training that makes it possible for Hispanics to climb ever higher on the career ladder, providing better lives for themselves and their families.
If the United States of America is going to continue to be the world's economic leader, we must produce the best educated and most skilled workforce in the world. And as Hispanics become an ever greater percentage of that workforce, we are depending on the colleges and universities that serve Hispanics to rise to that challenge.
There is no greater calling than to educate and prepare young minds to succeed in life. Thank you for your commitment to this most important cause and I look forward to working with you.
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