The U.S. Departments of Labor and Education announced the agencies’ aim to “strengthen alignment” between their sectors, pointing to the submission of 21 states’ combined Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act plans. This is compared to nine state plans submitted in 2024, according to a May 13 press release.
Signed into law in July 2014, WIOA requires states to align their workforce development programs with the needs of local job seekers and employers. The act aims to connect talent to opportunities and organizations to funding.
Streamlined state plans
The agencies said the increase in state plans was at least in part due to their recommendation that states include career and technical education programs, funded by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, in their combined WIOA State Plans.
More than doubling the number of states that have submitted combined WIOA state plans “is unprecedented and provides clear evidence of the utility and value” of the partnership, Nick Moore, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Career and Technical Education, said in a statement Wednesday.
One step forward, two steps back?
Despite Moore’s touting the Trump administration’s commitment to removing red tape, some labor experts don’t see President Donald Trump’s administration as a friend to workforce development.
Leaders at the National Skills Coalition, for example, said last month that Trump’s 2027 budget plans “undermine the conditions employers need to expand operations, increase productivity, and create new jobs – outcomes that benefit workers, employers, and the economy as a whole.”
Certain adult education programs are on the budget chopping block, for example; the administration last year said such a program “incentivizes illegal immigration by furnishing free education, workplace training, and assimilation guidance to aliens whose presence is unlawful.”
NSC called that “dangerous and false rhetoric, not grounded in the realities of working people.” Adult education programs help both U.S.-born and immigrant adults build crucial skills, according to NSC; “eliminating these programs is economically counterproductive, undermining the administration’s own goal of reaching 1 million apprenticeships.”
The Migration Policy Institute similarly has pointed to the importance of WIOA adult education services, which include programs for English, adult literacy and numeracy, high school equivalency, citizenship education and family literacy support. Such programs help more than 1 million foreign- and U.S.-born adults upskill each year, the organization said.
Where does this leave employers looking to support the continuing education of workers? “The current moment presents a serious challenge for adult education systems supporting the linguistic, civic and economic integration of immigrant adults, but it also presents an opportunity,” Jacob Hofstetter, policy analyst at MPI, said in a statement Wednesday. He suggested that states “reimagine their adult education policies and practices” — a learning and development approach that HR can keep in mind.