Obama recruits Gap, McDonald's for skills training

US President Barack Obama plans to announce an initiative today that links companies including McDonald’s Corp and United Technologies Corp with community colleges for programmes aimed at boosting the job skills of American workers.

Gap Inc, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Accenture Plc also are among the first firms enrolling in the partnership, called “Skills for America’s Future,” which grew out of recommendations of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

“Education is the economic defense budget for the 21st century” because “it’s the only way that we’re going to be able to be competitive with India, China and other countries,” Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, said in a conference call with reporters yesterday to preview Obama’s meeting with the board today.

At recent events tied to the campaign for November’s congressional elections, Obama repeatedly has highlighted education as a crucial component of US economic growth and as an area where there are policy differences between Democrats and Republicans.

The president has accused Republicans of planning to cut education funding in their election-year pledge to trim $100 billion from the $477 billion that lawmakers set for discretionary spending next year. Obama has requested $73.4 billion for the Depart-ment of Education next year, including a 32 per cent incre-ase in grants to help students pay for college.

‘Fundamental difference’
“The issue of education and reforming education so we can be more competitive over the long term is a fundamental difference between President Obama, the Democrats and the Republicans,” Pfeiffer said.

The announcement of the partnership will be formally made at this afternoon’s meeting of the advisory panel at the White House. Members of that board include Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric Co. Robert Wolf, head of UBS AG’s Americas unit, Jim Owens, chairman of Caterpillar Inc., and Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO labor union federation, according to the White House. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, also are scheduled to attend.

Partnerships
The goal of the programme is to create at least one partnership between industry and community colleges in each state. Obama’s has said he wants to increase the number of community college degrees and certificates by 5 million in the next decade.

Glenn Murphy, chairman and chief executive officer of Gap, operator of more than 3,000 clothing stores that include the Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, said in a statement today the fashion retailer will start a pilot programme in seven cities, designed to offer community college students job- and career- building skills to help take advantage of potential job opportunities. “Our in-house training materials will be made available to all community college students and applicable to many industries,” Murphy said in a statement. He said Gap plans to hire as many as 1,200 students from community colleges in 2011, about 5 per cent of its annual hiring. Murphy is scheduled to join Obama at the advisory board meeting today.

Seven markets
The seven markets are in Las Vegas, Denver, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. The effort includes in-store job training, interview and leadership training and scholarships. The programme may be expanded to other markets and units of the company such as Old Navy, Banana Republic and Gap Outlet factory stores, Murphy’s statement said.