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In March of this year, the U.S. Department of Labor announced grant awards totaling more than $23 million under the H-1B Technical Skills Training grant program. The grants were awarded to local communities to provide high-level training to employed and unemployed workers for jobs in occupations where skills shortages exist.

According to the Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, these grants will provide skills training in high growth industries such as health services and information technology. Chao said AThis is helping build the 21st Century workforce and is part of the administration's commitment to keeping Americans employed in good paying jobs and our training programs targeted to occupations-in-demand.

Many critics throughout the country are questionning the advisability of what is seemingly a band-aid approach to high-tech training when the real source of skills deficit is at the university level. We may just be training American workers to do data entry that does not address the failure of our educational system to prepare young Americans for a high technology world.

H-1B Technical Skills Training grants are supported by the $1000 user fees paid by employers who petition for high skilled foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. The goal of the training grants is to prepare Americans for these same high skill jobs, reducing the dependence on foreign labor.

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