Congressman Crow Passes His Bipartisan Bill to Help Small Businesses Offer On-The-Job Learning Opportunities & Relieve the Labor Shortage
WASHINGTON – Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO-06) last night voted to pass his bipartisan Small Business Workforce Pipeline Act to help more small businesses offer apprenticeships and on-the-job learning opportunities to their workers. Crow introduced the legislationwith Reps. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI-05), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA-06), and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY-02), all members of the House Small Business Committee, in April.
By empowering these businesses to invest in their workforce, this much-needed legislation will help deliver relief from the labor shortage – which has greatly impacted our nation’s small businesses. The legislation will now move to the Senate for consideration.
“The Small Business Workforce Pipeline Act aims to empower Small Business Development Centers—like Aurora-South Metro SBDC in my district—to help small businesses establish and improve their apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship, and job training programs,” said Congressman Crow during a floor speech about the bill.
“This bill will help workers gain the skills they need for in-demand jobs and help small businesses grow their business,” Crow continued.
For every unemployed individual seeking a job, there are roughly 1.7 job openings in the economy. While many businesses may have no trouble attracting applicants, it is often hard for them to find applicants with the skills they are looking for, and many are now turning to direct investments in their own workforce as a benefit of employment.
Specifically, the Small Business Workforce Pipeline Act empowers Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) to help our nation’s small businesses establish and improve their apprenticeship and job training programs. SBDCs work with the US Small Business Administration (SBA) to provide a suite of counseling and training services to small businesses and this would be an added area of support offered by SBDCs.
See a one-pager on the legislation here.
See the full text of the legislation here.
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