WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, this week in an exchange with President Biden’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, underscored the need to focus on the long-term unemployment population and highlighted the WorkPlace, a workforce development program in Connecticut as a model to build on.

“We have a workforce training agency in Connecticut called The WorkPlace that has been featured in national publications and national media because they have specifically attacked this issue of long-term unemployment with a program called Platform to Employment. And it recognizes the fact that, for folks that have been out of the workforce for a very long time for years, in some cases, there are all sorts of ancillary effects to that individual and to that family that have to be dealt with in order to get them back into the workforce,” Murphy said.

In a question to Su, Murphy asked, “And I think we're going to be looking at a very large population of long-term unemployed once we finally turn the corner. Is this something that you looked at, specifically in a targeted way in California? Do you think it's worthwhile for the Department of Labor to think about this specific population of individuals who've been out of the workforce for a long time, frankly, right now don't even show up on our statistics, and look at programs like Platform to Employment and others that have had success in rooting people back into the workforce?”

 Click here for video of Murphy’s full exchange with nominee for Deputy Secretary of Labor, Julie Su

A full transcript of Murphy’s exchange with Su is below:

MURPHY: “The second topic that I wanted to touch on is related to this issue of unemployment, but specific to the issue of long-term unemployment. We have a workforce training agency in Connecticut called The WorkPlace that has been featured in national publications and national media because they have specifically attacked this issue of long-term unemployment with a program called Platform to Employment. And it recognizes the fact that, for folks that have been out of the workforce for a very long time for years, in some cases, there are all sorts of ancillary effects to that individual and to that family that have to be dealt with in order to get them back into the workforce.

“And I think we’re going to be looking at a very large population of long-term unemployed once we finally turn the corner. Is this something that you looked at, specifically in a targeted way in California? Do you think it's worthwhile for the Department of Labor to think about this specific population of individuals who've been out of the workforce for a long time, frankly, right now don't even show up on our statistics, and look at programs like Platform to Employment and others that have had success in rooting people back into the workforce?”

SU: “That's right. Thank you, Senator. Yes, I think that it is definitely a population that needs and deserves our attention, again, especially coming out of a pandemic where we have seen long periods of unemployment for individuals, and, frankly, people dropping out of the labor force as a result, disproportionately women workers. And so I think that there is a tremendous need to target our workforce programs on those who face the greatest challenges and the long term unemployed are certainly one of those.

“I will also just note, I know there are innovative and effective programs in your state and other states that we ought to be building on. In California, too we've invested in what we call High Road Training Partnerships. They're really demand-driven partnerships between employers and employees or industry comes together, business, management, labor, community colleges, and other educational institutions and community organizations to support people who are trying to get into the workforce and creating opportunities for high road jobs where people can actually support a family and lift themselves out of poverty. And so I think finding those innovations and figuring out how we duplicate them where appropriate is something I would love to do. And I know that there are models in your state that we could use.

MURPHY: “That’s great to hear. Platform to Employment has an 80% success rate and some economists suggest one out of three jobs that have disappeared during the pandemic aren't coming back so this is going to be a problem that we all have to deal with. Thank you Madam Chair.”

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