As of February 2024, there were about eight million open positions in the labor market at the same time as there were 6.5 million unemployed Americans. One reason is that employers report difficulty finding people with the skills they need—and several federal laws passed in the last few years create even more demand for skilled workers. Among other things, employers are looking for people with strong quantitative and analytic skills, creativity and proficiency in solving complex problems, and good interpersonal communication, says this issue brief from MDRC.
Federal, state, and local policymakers view career and technical education (CTE) as a strategy both for meeting these needs in the labor market and for reducing gaps between students from lower- and higher-income backgrounds—making it one of the few policy areas to continually attract bipartisan support. For example, in 2018, both parties in Congress voted for the law known as Perkins V (the primary source of federal funding for K-12 and postsecondary CTE programs), and both Republican and Democratic regions of the country have launched and invested funding in state and local CTE initiatives: In 2022, 36 states enacted over 120 policies related to CTE, including notable investments in California, Ohio, and Texas.