First lady Jill Biden highlights Western Pa. workforce development efforts during Pittsburgh stop

First lady Jill Biden visited Pittsburgh on Wednesday and praised the region’s efforts in expanding workforce development programs and other career training initiatives.

Pittsburgh was designated a “workforce hub” in May. That provided federal funding and other assistance to existing workforce training programs in the region. Pittsburgh is one of five hubs designated across the country.

Biden praised the progress being made with workforce training efforts at Pittsburgh International Airport, a future manufacturing facility in New Kensington and the Community College of Allegheny County. She said these efforts will help bring new employees into the workforce, especially many who typically have not had access to union jobs in manufacturing and the trades.

“There is a bright, vibrant future ahead of Allegheny County,” Biden said.

Biden spoke in front of a crowd of about 300 inside the Mill 19 Building in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood. Politicians, union workers and others filled the crowd. A roundtable discussion followed Biden’s speech. This was Biden’s second visit to the region this year to tout workforce development efforts.

U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, also in attendance, said the federal government has funneled $255 million into Pittsburgh for workforce development efforts so far. She said she expects more will follow.

Those efforts include training and apprenticeships at the $1.5 billion remodel of the Pittsburgh International Airport and helping a new manufacturing facility in New Kensington connect with local workers.

The event focused on local and federal efforts to bring new and additional workers into the Pittsburgh region’s labor force. Pittsburgh’s unemployment is at 50-year lows, but also hasn’t recovered tens of thousands of jobs lost during the pandemic.

The losses are not even across industries.

While manufacturing jobs have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, the figures have been growing. Allegheny County has added more than 2,000 manufacturing jobs since 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Biden administration appears eager to boost those numbers through federal investment, especially if that means adding workers to the labor force in disadvantaged communities that have been hit hard by economic decline.

“This is our chance to get good jobs in the communities that need it the most,” Su said.

In New Kensington, Re:Build Manufacturing announced in May that it plans to build a 175,000-square-foot facility where it will manufacture softball bats.

Victor Mroczkowski, executive vice president of operations for Re:Build, said the city has a poverty rate of 16%, and 21% of adults are out of work.

He said Re:Build will create 300 jobs at the facility, and the region’s workforce programs have helped them locate employees, some within walking distance of the facility.

CCAC President Quintin Bullock said workforce funding has helped the community college open a 60,000-square-foot facility to provide advanced manufacturing instruction and other programs to train a skilled workforce in growing Pittsburgh industries.

Biden said the region’s expanding workforce development efforts can help fill jobs in robotics, clean energy and other high-tech jobs in the region. She said it is part of Pittsburgh’s successful transition away from a history of heavy industry.

“In many ways, Pittsburgh has always been a place of transformation where iron ore turns to steel and steel to prosperity,” she said. “And today, you’re still transforming – turning an old steel mill into a training center for the jobs of the future.”