I'm Larry Perlman CEO of Ceridian Corporation and the chair of the Minnesota Meeting. The Minnesota Meeting is a public affairs Forum which brings together major national and international speakers to Minnesota. Its members are leaders from the Twin Cities business nonprofit government academic and the community and the professions broadcasts of Minnesota meeting are made possible by the generous support of the Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly will offer today's speaker is The Honorable Robert Rush United States Secretary of Labor as those of you here at the Hilton already know we had a last-minute change of plans secretary rice his plane was unable to take off from from Washington and he was unable to reschedule a flight to be here in person. He will however be speaking to us by telephone through a satellite satellite link up in just a few minutes. I am pleased to say, howeverThat we joining me on the stage are for Minnesota political leaders. All of whom are committed to issues of job creation and Workforce training subjects that the secretary is particularly interested in senator. Paul Wellstone who serves on the key senate committee dealing with many of these issues is here Sharon Sales Belton new mayor of Minneapolis who is keenly interested in issues of job creation Economic Development as is the new mayor of st. Paul Norm Coleman who is very concerned about Economic Development job creation kinds of issues. And also with us is Kurt Johnson who's the Deputy Chief of Staff and chief policy aide to Governor Carlson following secretary righteous remarks the panelists will raise questions or make comments for the for theGary and I think that will give us a chance to to engage him in all of us directly in these issues Robert Rice shoes America's 22nd. Secretary of Labor has had a distinguished career both as a public servant and as a scholar dealing with the effects of the global economy and Rapid technological change on working Americans when he nominated Robert Rice to be Secretary of Labor President Clinton said with his help, I believe we can bring forth the revolution in lifetime training and education of our Workforce Fortune Magazine has named Brice among 25 individuals who are key to making a nice States more competitive.Born in Scranton Pennsylvania race graduated from Dartmouth College and received a law degree from Yale University a Rhodes scholar. He obtained a degree in philosophy politics and economics from Oxford. He served as assistant to the solicitor general in the Ford Administration and head of the policy planning staff of the Federal Trade Commission in the Carter Administration. Most recently. He was on the faculty of Harvard's John F Kennedy School of government. He's been an advisor to business government political leaders and is the author of seven books and more than 200 articles on the American economy in the emerging Global Market since becoming secretary Robert rice has reinvigorated the Department of Labor or as he calls it the department of the American Workforce with bold new initiatives to create more and better jobs for Americans the first year the department has implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act and spearheaded school to work training opportunities and National skills standards. The department has stepped up enforcement.Labor laws to protect workers and begun the transformation of the unemployment system to a Reemployment system for Americans facing structural unemployment Global competition corporate downsizing and conversion from a military to a civilian economy. In addition secretary rice has launched the office of the American workplace to Foster better collaboration between workers and managers encourage employee training and profit-sharing gainsharing and employee participation in corporate governance following the secretary's remarks and comments by our panelists to the extent. We have time. We will give those of you here in the audience an opportunity to ask questions. Please use the slips of paper on your table to jot down questions for discussion and having had the great pleasure to introduce them. I would now like to present to you via the miracle of Technology Secretary of Labor.Robert Rice, mr. Secretary. Well, thank you very much Larry. I really wish I could be there and had I not been fogged in this morning. I certainly would be the Washington Airport didn't work. Some people think Washington is always fogged in but I can assure you that this morning was the exception and unfortunately for me Paul wellstone. I wish I could be there with you on the panel. You have been an extraordinary help over the past year and setting Direction helping the Department of Labor helping working people and businesses come together and work together very very effectively and I want to thank you for that and Larry you to you. I don't know how many people in the audience know that you were in charge of the business roundtables committee looking at Workforce Readiness and you came forth with some recommendations that we in fact are putting into effect right now, and we're going to be talking about them in a moment. Mayor Sharon sales belt and I want to congratulate you. I was looking forward to meeting you and I hope we're going to have a chance to work together in the future.Get your I was going to tourist site today today with you and Norm Coleman we met before and I want to congratulate you and I look forward to working with you and Kurt you as well. I just had a few things I wanted to say and I'm it's a little awkward talking to you without seeing you but I'm assuming that all of you are sitting there and maybe some of you given what I say may even nod your head in agreement, but let's save a lot of time for questions and answers and hopefully I can be helpful to you. The Minnesota Meeting is a fantastic group because it's committed and I know you're committed because I've talked to you before to the proposition that ideas are important. They have power talking about ideas debating them discussing them in Rich or public life. I also want to say a special hello to everybody listening live on Minnesota Public Radio. You're a very important part of the solution Solutions. Don't begin in Washington Solutions get to Washington and Washington helps make them happen.But they almost always in our history and happened at the local level at the state level at the Grassroots level. You are the catalysts we help move forward the momentum that starts where the Catalyst begin for your form today. You asked me to present an overview of the economy for the coming year. And actually when it comes to the Future, they're really only two kinds of people those who know the future and those who actually those who don't know the future I should say those who don't know they don't know the future and I am resolutely in the first category. I really cannot predict but I have a fair amount of confidence that we're on the right track. We created two million more jobs additional jobs in the country in 1993. It looks very much very likely that another additional 2 million jobs will be created in 1994 and we are turning around aAsian that was a very prolonged and very intense recession not the deepest recession we've ever had but a very long recession very stubborn recession. The next few years are going to be very different. I don't want to be overly optimistic in the sense that I don't want to say they're going to be Rosie. We still have a great deal of unemployment in the nation over 8 million Americans are still unemployed at this very moment. We have another 6 million people who are too discouraged even to look for work and working part-time when they'd rather be working working full-time. So we have a large number of people who need help and in addition we have the difficulty many Americans have of getting the next job long-term unemployment is at record levels.And we need to do something about that historic changes in politics economics technology are pulling the world together in ways that are forcing each of us to rethink very very basic assumptions. For instance. What do we make of a company like Stockholm based a be Electrolux a be Electrolux is what many consider to be a Swedish company because most of its Executives and shareholders live in Sweden, but a be Electrolux also owns and runs Frigidaire employs 1,600 people manufacturing freezers and st. Cloud Minnesota by the old standards say the standards of ten years ago such an entity might be a little bit confusing but by today's standards a lot of American companies are becoming global companies a lot of European companies that employ American workers are also becoming global companies recently. My wife and I needed to buy a new car. We went to one of the big three showrooms.A loyal we buy America and we found a car that matched our family's needs perfectly was absolutely perfect. But I wanted to be absolutely sure and so I ask the salesperson who is showing us the car I said very pointedly now I want you to tell me truthfully was this car made here in the United States by American workers. Was it assembled by American blue? Collar workers? You must be very clear with me. I want to know and the salesman paused for a very long time trying to decide was I one of those or was I one of those and finally he looked up at me with a smile and said that which would you prefer so you see there is a lot of ambiguity about about who's who and whose what I had just a little over a year ago before I became Secretary of Labor. I had to have my hips actually new hips put in on artificial hips put in because of an arthritic condition and I discovered recently.That my hips were actually designed in Germany and fabricated in France, which means that I don't even meet the domestic content requirements for being a Secretary of Labor. The point I want to make here though. Is that the critical resource in the country? The one resource that is that is absolutely Central to our future well-being is our people their skills their ability to work together their insights their ability to solve problems. That's what we at the labor department. That's what the Clinton Administration is interested in doing not only getting the macroeconomy right? Not only reducing the deficit getting interest rates down opening up foreign markets making sure we're back on the path toward more jobs, but also very importantly a high-priority making sure Americans have the education and the training and the skills they need to succeed. And we're doing that we're doing that slowly. We're doing that in a way that I think is responsible. We're making progress on that front during the last two decades that the nature of unemployment has dramatically changed in the past when a company faced hard times it laid off some of its workers and then hire them back as soon as the business picked up again the purpose of the unemployment system in those days was to provide these workers with enough income to whether a temporary storm. But today when a worker loses a job chances are the job is just not going to come back again in the last year three out of every four workers who were identified as job losers were laid off permanently in the 1970s an average of I believe it was 11 percent of the nation's unemployed. We're out of work for six months or longer in the 1980s its 15% It was 15% were six months or longer and thus far in the 1990s. We're up to 17. 18 fact last year 21 percent of the unemployed in America had not worked for six months or longer. And that's the second highest annual level since the end of World War two people have to change jobs the average 18 year old in this nation it now looks forward to a career in which he or she is going to change job seven or eight times. Now what we need in this country is not just so not just an unemployment system but a Reemployment system. We're designing one with the help of the Senate with the help of the house with the help of Congress and Paul you or have been enormously helpful so far. We're going to be designing one in which we help Americans get the next job. Give them job search assistance give them job training where they need it pull together all of the scattershot of training programs. We have the right now are very limited because they are limited to particular groups of people who are deemed exceptions to the general rule. All that you get your old job back. Hold them all together provide people with Pathways to get the next job a good information system. So that people know what they're training for. There's nothing worse than training for some for a job that doesn't exist. So get them information a computerized training jobs bank. We're going to be developing that helps people get information about where the jobs are what the good jobs are what they can train for what they can build on in terms of the experiences. They've already had in other words changing the unemployment system into an active system for getting people good jobs and next jobs. There's a lot of experimentation around the states already. We know it can work. We know this thing really does have a potential to work and it's certainly much much cheaper than keeping millions and millions of Americans on unemployment insurance last year the federal federal government alone spent almost 14 billion dollars on extended unemployment insurance and that's In addition to the 22 billion dollars spent by the states and the federal government on regular unemployment insurance. We can do better help people get the next job get a good job. The other thing that we have to focus on which is an increasing problem, even though jobs are getting back is the plight of many of our young people who are not going on to college. Maybe they cannot go on. Maybe they will not go on. Maybe it's an appropriate for them to go on but the 50% who do not go on to college the 75% of our young people who don't even graduate from college. Those people need help. They have been on a downward wage escalator for the last 15 years. If you have a college degree, although you were hit in the last recession. Certainly you were hit badly many people with college degrees were unemployed for a period of time. But if you have a college degree over all over the last 15 years, you are on an upward escalator you have the ability to solve problems. Use Technologies gain advantage in the global Marketplace. If you don't have a college degree, if you don't have skills, if you just have a high school degree or less you have seen your wages steadily decline the Gap my friends is widening. It's widening and every state even in Minnesota and part of our strategy has got to be to develop a school to work transition program and apprenticeship program which helps our young people get skills. They need to prosper in this new technology driven global economy. We have a an initiative again or wellstone has been extraordinarily helpful other people on the hill been actively involved Paul Simon Senator. Simon has been actively involved and initiative which will bridge the gap from school to work. It will provide funding for states that develop work-based learning for 11th and 12th graders closely tied closely allied with school based learning. So that bridge is very tight their mentors right there. I've seen them some states have already experimented some communities who already experimented mentors at the work site so that the kids can understand the relationship between working and learning learning and working a lot of our young people. We're not going on to college. They're in high school, but they don't understand why they're there. They don't see the relationship between what they learn in the classroom and what the world of work actually holds for them the school to work apprenticeship type programs, which have been successful around the country. They need more money. They need more seed money. They have proven themselves as capable of not only keeping two kids in school, but also getting them good jobs and with a year or two after high school getting a certificate showing that somebody has mastered and area of skill young people really do have a chance. They have a chance to make it there are jobs out there for them, but they do need that skill. That's a prerequisite that piece of legislation by the way is already made it through the house and hopefully we'll we've got through the senate committee. Hopefully we'll get on the senate floor and get that. It's a very very high priority with the president and I know you all in Minnesota are also quite interested in that issue and it's going to be very very important. I want to ask the Business Leaders in the audience to help America accomplish these kinds of goals. We can't do it without business school to work apprentices helping people get the next job when they lose the former jobs American Business now has an extraordinary opportunity to pitch in and help the American Workforce and ways that they have never been helped and have never needed the help before Larry Perlman when you worked with the Business Roundtable and come up came up with those ideas. In fact, you came up with an idea. So you endorsed the school to work apprenticeship program the Reemployment system consolidating all of these training programs helping people get the next job Business Roundtable is right behind businesses in Minnesota have been enormously active with education and with training. I wish every state had a business community that was as active as the business community in Minnesota because that's that's basically where it is businesses need skilled. Is as much as skilled workers as much as American workers need the skills businesses in America depend on skilled workers. I want to just give you one example. I know there are many many examples one example that just came to me because I had some information recently is the zytek corporation manufacturer of electronic equipment power supplies and Eden Prairie Minnesota at zytek employees are involved in all aspects of the Enterprise cross-functional teams design and develop new products workers participate in reviewing the company's long-term plans setting Improvement goals. Each year is itex employees also receive a lot of quality related instruction. I believe the information I have is 72 hours including specialized training in problem solving methods. This is just one example, there are many other Minnesota examples businesses can help participate in a system of lifelong learning. That's what Americans need. Long learning. It's no longer the case that you can simply graduate high school and expect to have a good job waiting for you. That is no longer the case. Those jobs are Vanishing High wage low skill secure jobs. They are simply Vanishing from America people need skills and they need lifelong learning. It's a partnership. The government is going to do its part. The Clinton Administration is going to do its part in terms of school to work and Reemployment system businesses need to do their part individuals and communities obviously have a tremendous responsibility to get the training to get the education to get the preparation they need and to engage in lifelong learning getting America working preparing all Americans for good jobs easing the transition of American workers from job to job creating high performance work places. Those are the goals. Those must be our mutual Mission again. I wish I could be there with you in person. We're fog-bound. In fact as I look out the window here. I can I'm looking at the Capitol and I can barely see it through the through the clouds if I could have been I would be there with you, but I look forward to your questions, and I want to salute you for all of the great work that you already have already done. Thank you. Thank you very much. Secretary rice for your presentation. I will now ask first mere Sales Belton to comment ask a question. Whatever she wants to do. It's for City. Whatever I want to do Larry. I don't know. Well first I want to just use the second day was still with us. I'm doing still here. Thank you. First. I want to applaud you for your leadership in the discussion about the dislocated workers. I think it's important for us always to do our best to keep are those American workers who have been in the workforce with access to opportunities to continue to work. I'd like to know from you. Mr. Secretary or what types of initiatives have been discussed in Washington to help our mayor's across this country deal with the problem that we face and that is trying to get the persistently poor the Employ the chronically unemployed Americans back into the OR into the workforce for the first time. I'm convinced that unless we figure out how to do that or how to do that better. They Central cities of these United States are going to continue to have trouble and continue to deteriorate. I think that's probably the hardest and most difficult but also one of the most important things we have to do there because we are seeing rates of teenage unemployment kids who have dropped out of school rates in our Central cities 6070 times sometimes 80% of those teenagers don't have jobs. They're not even in the jobs markets the unemployment statistics don't even include them and we are committed to doing as much as we possibly can about it. Some of the things we're doing are already public, you know, I'm sure about the empowerment Zone initiatives in which states and cities are going to be eligible. People for special Federal funding waivers of federal regulations the opportunity to put a lot of federal funding already in the pipeline together in new ways so that you don't have to worry about Federal bureaucracy. You can deliver the services directly to people we're also trying to get credits investment Capital to Central cities one, you know that you can you can have all the training you want all the education you want. But if those kids don't have jobs if they're not jobs in those areas the training and education is often for not and we have a number of initiatives through the small business administration. The treasury Department were considering some even with regard to our pension plans and our pension oversight. We are doing what we can and will do much more to leverage investment dollars private investment dollars for the central cities. We are in addition working on a Leet revamping of the welfare system a system which unfortunately doesn't help people get jobs doesn't help a young single mothers get jobs too often in this country. It is simply provided people with a with a kind of with a safety net. That's that's not enough of a trampoline safety net. That's doesn't help them move out of welfare. Now 70% of young people single parents on welfare get off welfare, but within two years but 60% of them get back on welfare again and what we're examining right now with welfare reform is a time limit with regard to how much welfare you can have but ensuring that people on welfare have the job training the job opportunities the childcare perhaps even perhaps even subsidized employment for a while while they transition off welfare so that they can be sure to get Job and keep off of welfare. We are doing a variety of other things and I can give you a list of programs. But I just want to say to you that I don't believe and I don't think anybody to the Clinton ministration believes and I'm sure you don't believe that there's any magic bullet to this critical problem. I think that the way to tackle it is through a multi-faceted approach continue to help build communities rebuild families fight crime. The crime initiative on the on the hill right now is is terribly important. It's important that communities feel safe. You can't even begin the rebuilding of an economic base if there's not the foundation of safety and personal security and so that to that extent a an initiative which fights and prevents violence goes hand in glove with initiative the builds jobs. I could state it in the other way as well that that work provides dignity. It provides structure it provides meaning so Have to simultaneously build those jobs in those communities. We're expanding Job Corps. Job Corps has been proven to be one of the most effective legacies of the Great Society with regard to helping young people get jobs and become full and productive citizens after they leave their teenage years. It's an expensive program, but it has proven it's worth and that is one of the areas that we are we are investing in. Thank you. Next comment and question from mayor Coleman. Thank you. Mr. Secretary. I learned today that you were not a miracle worker many of us had expected you and the president to lift the cloud and cut through the fog that surrounds Washington, but certainly there are some physical realities that we can change. Let me first say that that I applaud and insert would like to reiterate your message of partnership between business and government clearly. We in government can't do it alone beat on the federal level the state level of the city let alone and truly we need partnership and I'm so pleased to hear that particularly in trying to establish the school to work reality. We certainly have to restructure our educational system here in st. Paul in Minnesota and elsewhere and we need business to work much more aggressively with our school systems with our community colleges. We need our friends in organized labor to participate in this in this new vision new Venture, and I applauded my question. Do it with a little piece. We were focusing on Youth and I just wanted to touch on that and that is the issue of summer programs of jobs programs during that very hot time in central cities during that period of where the the potential of of incendiary reactions are very great and and certainly one of great concern to in st. Paul and Minneapolis and other Urban centers in st. Paul are summer jobs programs were cut I think 70% in the last year. And again, I understand that this is something that the federal government alone can't solve we will reach out aggressively to the business community and ask for help and as to work with us, but can we expect any help in that area? Can we be more aggressive and more forthcoming in providing at least opportunity for youth during that period of time that little piece of the puzzle as we move them along the path from school to work realities? Yeah. Mr. Mayor, I asked for additional funding for summer jobs for next summer. I think we will have at least as much funding hopefully more funding than we had last summer and the summer before I agree with you completely that that's a critical piece. Most of the evaluations of summer jobs programs show that they at the very least provide young disadvantaged people with a structure with some discipline during the summer giving them some of the basic building blocks. They need to go on and get a real job afterwards and it has been shown to be important and effective the Inspector General here did an evaluation of the summer job programs around the country last summer and found that young people young disadvantaged people had meaningful work experiences. So the image from the late 60s and early 70s of kids leaning on rakes and not really doing effective work is just simply not the Case it is a good it is a very important program, but we have to rely on the private sector to a great degree. I wish that we had a lot of money. I wish I could open up a spigot and provide a huge amounts of money to cities and to disadvantaged for summer training for job training for for jobs in the summer for jobs all year round. And unfortunately, we're dealing with a with a reality which is a constraint but it's a necessary constraint in order to get the budget deficit down. The president has had to pare back on a lot of priorities a lot of spending the entire domestic discretionary budget of this country the entire domestic discretionary budget comes to only 15 percent of the total federal budget right now that's not including if you not including military obviously not including Medicaid not including Medicare not including Social Security not including interest on the debt, but if you take off If you take off of the plate the the military and Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare which are all by the way, Medicaid Medicare are going up three times the rate of inflation take those off the plate and also take off interest on the federal debt. All you're left with is 15 percent of the federal budget to do everything we want to do with regard to Education and Training and welfare, reform roads and bridges and Technology police and everything else that the federal government needs to do. Well, we're doing our best but the private sector has got to Rally the private sector has rallied and large part from the perspective of Washington. I can tell you we work very hard to bring interest rates down to get control over the federal budget deficit to open up foreign markets to American goods, and we do need to rely on the private sector to fill in some of the gaps. Okay, thank you before asking a sender wellstone for his comments and questions. I want to remind those of you in the audience that we hopefully will have the opportunity for for a few questions from you. Please write them down on the slips of paper on your table and Jane Mayer check and Ken darling of Minnesota Meeting will circulate among you to pick them up and ask them for you. So Senator welcome. Thanks Larry. I actually have a bunch of jottings here in lots of questions. But since I know there are many people here at Minnesota Meeting that have questions for you. Mr. Secretary. I'll just ask one. I do want to take a Chapter from your book. Mr. Secretary. I do want everybody here today at this Minnesota Meeting to know that the secretary used to be my height until he started worrying about the economy any comment. Mr. Secretary. I think that's exactly right. the major job retraining package And I've looked at a couple of drafts and and I know the work that you put into it I think is really important and my guess is that everybody here thinks. It's really important the consolidation of a lot of these job training programs and and moving toward One Stop shopping and reconfiguring the unemployment insurance program. So that for example people could use some of that as a sort of start up money for their own small businesses, etc. Etc. Takes us in the right direction, but I want to build on the comment that you just made with two questions one. I'm interested in how you're going to fund it. Given what you just said about the Caps where will what money that goes into this come from? And the second question that I'm interested in and mastectomy this was certainly in a lot of your writings and I think I've read just about every probably all of your books. You're the one I knew there was somebody in Minnesota. I'm the one well, I'm a hopeless academic. You know, I know the unemployment figures but it still it still doesn't tell us I remember about all the job training programs in the past and and and part of the critique of those programs was they focused on the supply side of labor, but not the demand side and we pay and we trained people ultimately for jobs that didn't exist. Now I would amend that and I would say the jobs are out there the question is whether or not These are jobs that people can count on namely jobs that pay a decent wage that they can support themselves on their families on because what I worry about is whether or not after we go through this major job training initiative. We still are going to be seen an economy that's going to be producing the kind of jobs for people that they can really make a living on and so my two questions have to do with a where's the money going to come from? And B, what about the question that has been raised over and over again, which is yes you focus on the supply side. But what about the demand side? And yes, the official unemployment rate is coming down, but are those jobs the kinds of jobs that people can really support themselves on and the last part of the question. I said one question, but you notice I threw it in a be in a see is I would like for you to speak very directly to what I think is a bit of a contradiction that we're all struggling with which is on the one hand. We put a tremendous amount of emphasis on deficit reduction on the other hand. I go to the question from really both mayor's but I'll pick up especially on what the mayor Sharon Sales Belton had to say which is when we get into all of these issues of welfare reform and hardcore poverty and public private partnership and job creation and commitment to education and reduction of crime and all the rest the question becomes how do you balance that out with the caps and the emphasis? deficit reduction Okay. Well, let's say you've asked me a b and c let me start with a in terms of money. We went from 1993 we had about 500 million dollars in the kitty for job retraining all told for dislocated workers. Now, there's a lot of training for people who have not yet come into the workforce, but for people who've lost their job we have about 500 million the 1993 actually in 1994 were up to all over twice that amount Congress has approved you Paul and others have approved 1.1 billion for 1994 for dislocated workers to help workers get new jobs and to get re-employed and we're hoping to continue on a trajectory of increasing those funds even though we're competing with a lot of other priorities. The president is intent on helping Americans stay in the job market helping Americans get new jobs and the answer to your Question, where's the money coming from? It's a high priority. And so it will get funded in. The president will be seeking additional funds other things will have to be cut that's that's simply the fact of the matter and the president's budget at this very moment is being put together but the shift from 500 million in 1993 22 1.1 billion in 1994 is a good sign in terms of ensuring that workers have some security with regard to helping get the next job with regard to good jobs. Let me just say this. Are there good jobs out. There. Are there jobs out there to be trained for my answer is a resounding. Yes. Of the two million new jobs that were created in 1993 over 60% of them over 60% of them were managerial professional and technical jobs requiring more than a high school degree requiring some skills often requiring college degree not always but requiring something Beyond a high school degree. These are good jobs. They are not necessarily great jobs, but they're good jobs, their middle-class jobs or better. They are jobs that entails some knowledge of Technology many of them their jobs that entail some problem solving ability many of them some of the fastest growing jobs in America are in areas, like computer integration that is integrating the software for various computers or computer sales and servicing technical people that understand how to help consumers deal with new information technology or to give you another example Even jobs that are as mundane sounding as a sales representative on the floor of a major department chain, we find that more and more of them like Home Depot are trained in a very specific area to help consumers to help customers in Home Depot. Those sales representatives on the floor actually are specialists in their area. They reorder they do inventory control. They help customers. Those are good jobs. Those are not the typical retail jobs. I have come across truck drivers in the United States. Now, these are the exceptions to the rule but I've come across truck drivers who have faxes and modems and computers in their in their cab so that they can time their deliveries exactly to win. The customers need them and they can help the customers assemble complex equipment. Once delivered now, these are people are really technical Specialists. These are technical Sales and Service people again, there is an increasing need for them in the healthcare field. Although Healthcare. Hopefully Hope Health care costs will not grow as fast as they've grown in recent years nevertheless. There will be an increasing need for nurses and increasing need for home healthcare Specialists and increasing need for laboratory technicians, all of these all of these require some skill some training in addition to high school. They pay reasonably. Well, they don't need college degrees. My point is that across the landscape of America. We are finding more and more managerial professional and technical jobs requiring some skills. There is a need for these people. Yes, they are trained and if they get the right information, which is the other point, I wanted to make Paul we have a training scattershot of training programs. Now, they're small programs. They're all over the place. They are usually categorical Graham is designed for particular categories of workers deemed to be exceptions to the general rule that you got your old job back trade adjustment assistance workers Clean Air Act workers Redwood forest workers Timber workers and so forth. We need to provide the opportunity to anybody who needs it to get retrained. But also give them job search assistance give them good information about what to be retrained for information about where there are good jobs and what training is necessary to get those good jobs. There is nothing worse than being trained for a job that doesn't exist. And so that the job search assistance and job information has got to be seen as necessary correlates to this retraining and skill upgrading system the secretary thank you for get the C part because other people have questions. Thank you for your fine work. And remember I see John would lie there and I told John that had the best community meeting I've ever had and Wabash. I just loved it. We have to also remember All Town rural Greater Minnesota when we think about the economic development job creation. Thank you very much. And thanks for your fine work. Mr. Secretary. I'll let other people. Okay. Thank you, bro. And I'm counting on you by the way to help you've done a wonderful job so far. Thank you. Our last question coming from the panel will I think it does reflect the need to have a broader interest in these issues aside of just the metropolitan area Kurt Johnson plays a very key role in the state as the governor's chief policy aide and his Deputy Chief of Staff some of you may not know that Governor Carlson shares a very important Committee of the national Governors Association response, which is working on issues of job creation and job training so Curtis very involved in these issues. Thank you Lori, mr. Secretary. We certainly do appreciate even through these technological means being able to talk with you today. As Larry mentioned Governor Carlson is also enjoyed working with you through the national Governors Association and trying to find some new vision for preparing the workforce in America. And that really goes to my question which I promise you will not be as weighty as Senator well stones and it may not be as important. But I think it is important to a lot of people everybody is encouraged by the prospect of our nation adopting some really enlightened comprehensive sensible way to prepare the workforce that's coming through and to deal with the dislocations in people who are losing their jobs. We see Bills moving through the Congress, but there is every evidence as these bills emerge that we're going to be playing the same kinds of games of responding to the compliance requirements of this Earth. Key committee chair in Congress that by the time the bills cross the line into the states. They are so Laden with restrictions and requirements and regulations that when you get a notice about something that you're supposed to fax the acknowledgement back to it takes you 37 pages to read to know how to respond to it. My question really goes to whether there's an appetite even enthusiasm in the executive branch to take this on and to lean on Congress to really set policy goals set standards require evaluation. Send money and get out of the way. Maybe a mr. Secretary of folks here way of putting this would be didn't we learn anything from vice president Gore's battle with the governmental ashtray. Do you think our is there is it possible to get this enthusiasm or we just not being realistic back in Minnesota? Well, I think there is it is possible to get that enthusiasm carrot what I'm hoping for and again this maybe I've only been here ten months and people accuse me, sometimes little bit of naivete but I hope that we can provide the states with a great deal of latitude with regard to education and job training and all of these these programs school to work. I hope that we're going to be in a position where States can be very creative the school to work opportunities program doesn't at all have a kind of one size fits all flavor States will be proposing whatever they want with regard to the basic criteria of work based learning combined with school based learning tightly linked to one year at least of skill development After High School. The states can do it. However, they wish as long as they meet the criteria and we're going to be rewarding the state. That seemed to be seem to be coming up with the best plans at the same thing with the Reemployment Insurance system. The goal is is to get out of the little boxes one box called unemployment insurance and other box called retraining another box called employment assistance. We want to be putting all of that together allow states to come up with one stop shopping in ways that only the states and only look hell's know how to do and we're going to be standing behind you. In fact, that's exactly the vision. We want to allow these different funding streams to come together and very creative and flexible ways. So that states can serve the people locales and cities can serve the people they want to serve I'm going to fight that fight and I know that they're an awful lot of people on the hill who are willing to fight that fight with me and I hope you give my very very best to to Governor Carlson. We're going to be counting on Governor Carlson and you Norm Coleman and you Sharon we're going to be counting on you Paul. I think we can do this. There's enough momentum behind it right now and we have enough momentum left over from the first year of the Clinton ministration. When I when we got about 80% of of what that legislative agenda was all about. I think we can do it Health Care is obviously the number one priority. We mustn't forget that we're going to work very very very hard to create a National Health Care system, which also is flexible where States will have the opportunity to get their own waivers their own systems impose their own systems within a broad National framework, but right behind right behind Healthcare and crime comes Education and Training and Welfare, the very very fundamentals that we're talking about the human development issues that I know so many of you care so much about all I can tell you is I'm going to try my damnedest. Thank you. I think we have time for secretary for a couple of questions from the audience before our hour is up, and I'm right here. In for the first one. Mr. Secretary, I did want to tell you that in addition to a room full of government business and Community leaders. We happen to have students from four high schools. And st. Thomas. This is all thanks to our generous corporate sponsors. We're going to put one of them on the spot for a question in just a minute. But first of all, here's a first question from dick Green from Honeywell. Mr. Secretary I deck Hi, how are you? Good. I'll see you in a couple of weeks for breakfast too. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. All right. I've just returned from a trip to Denmark Sweden and Switzerland in which I reviewed the youth apprenticeship programs there. I was keenly impressed with the effective Partnerships with business labor unions and education fully encouraged and supported by the government what incentives are plan to create similar effective programs here in the United States. Well dick. I think the major incentive has got to be the private sectors interest and indeed their dependents in a skilled Workforce. We're not going to see a lot of tax credits. We're not going to see a lot of deductions and tax expenditures simply because of the of the budget constraints we are under right now, but I can tell you I have been visiting now eight or nine different states different cities where I have seen the business Community working. Very very closely with a high schools in developing these apprenticeship like programs and those businesses don't need special Financial incentives what they need and I'm in some senses referring back to what Kurt Johnson said a moment ago. What they need is flexibility. They want they need the ability to come together with the schools. They need Educators who are interested in working with them. They need a state government and local governments that are also flexible funding that is flexible but their interests and I've been impressed by this and of course the Minnesota business Community is famous for its dedication to the public service. They have made it work because they have an inherent interest in a skilled Workforce and making sure that young people in their area move smoothly from school to work. Thank you. Mr. Surgery we have time for one question from one of our high school students whose here a short answer. Then we're going to have to bring this to a close. So I will turn the mic over to one of our students. It's Lee Egbert from washing Washburn High School here in Minneapolis, highly. Thanks. Um, I'm probably going to be visiting Washington. I'm going to the close-up program. So I'm really excited about that. I just would like to ask you one thing. I would like me as a student in high school. I'm a senior and I'm kind of scared to the fact that when I go into college I want to be assured that the job that I want to go for is going to be open for me and I would like to know somehow are being formed to the fact that that will be true. That's one of my primary interests. I'm just wondering if that information could be directed towards high school students. So they know what are open and so they can get into things that they're interested in. Thanks what part of our goalie is to develop this Database this information system of where the jobs are aware. There is job growth where there are openings so that we can help guidance counselors school guidance counselor's students people who have been dislocated from lost their jobs so we can everybody and give them better guidance with regard to where the jobs are likely to be with regard to the Future. Nobody Knows the future. I can't be specific and I should not even try to be specific and nobody should be specific about exactly where the jobs are my advice to you with regard to high school and college education. The most important thing you can do is learn how to learn there is no set of skills. There is no set of specific courses. There is no degree that is going to be satisfactory for the world. You are going to inherit in the workforce. Things are going to change too quickly old Technologies are going to become obsolete too fast. What we need to ensure. Is that every young person has the toolkits. They need to continue. Firstly learn on the job. You're going to be changing jobs. You may be changing careers six or seven times. You need the ability to solve problems. You need the ability to identify problems, you need abstract reasoning and logic you may need some basic tools with regard to computer literacy as well as obviously the more formal types of literacy and numeracy if we can provide every young person without foundation with a learning to learn skills. I'm going to be very optimistic about your job and every Young Person's job secretary. Thank you. I think that's a very good idea and thought to close on I'd like to thank you for your presentation and thank each member of the panel for your willingness to on short notice participate in this and to contribute to our understanding and discussion of these issues and thank all of you Minnesota Meeting members and guests for being with us today. Our next meeting is on Monday, January 24th. With former deputy prime minister of Poland Leszek Balcerowicz. Please plan to join us and until then we are adjourned. Thank you.