Ivanka Trump talks education reform, job training at CES

Ivanka Trump, elder daughter and adviser to President Donald Trump, delivered a keynote address at CES 2020 that focused largely on rethinking the American education system and economy in ways that would eliminate barriers for those seeking good-paying jobs.

Trump, however, avoided all mentions of the two biggest stories in Washington today, impeachment and Iran.

Despite some online controversies over Trump’s selection as a speaker and the slight political undertones in some of her answers, Trump’s 40-minute conversation with Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro went off without a hitch in a packed Palazzo Ballroom at The Venetian.

“There’s really never been a better time to be working in America,” Trump said to open her remarks. “There’s record-low unemployment across every demographic, and there have never been more people working in the history of the country.”

Trump credited the administration’s efforts to deregulate and cut taxes as a major reason for “the boom that is happening” economically. She said the number of job vacancies in America was greater than the number of people unemployed over the past 14 months.

She said the president campaigned on lifting blue-collar workers and those in the bottom tier of wage earners, and he’s delivered.

There is cause for concern, however, as automation and rapidly advancing technology threaten to push out unskilled labor and create a massive need for skilled jobs, Trump warned.

Hard-to-fill vacancies

Shapiro agreed with the concern over skilled labor shortages, saying four out of five of the more than 2,500 tech companies represented by the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on CES, have found it difficult to fill vacancies.

Trump proposed increasing the number of apprenticeships available for technology and health care jobs, which she said often unnecessarily require advanced degrees or disqualify those who were formerly incarcerated.

“It’s not about degrees anymore,” she said. “It’s about skills.”

She added that the Trump administration is working across Cabinet departments to ensure they are on the same page to prepare a pipeline for young Americans to get good jobs without a four-year degree, while continuing the quality of the country’s university systems for those who do go to college.

The administration is also pushing for existing employers in rapidly modernizing industries to invest now in retraining, or “reskilling” as Trump often called it, their current workers, rather than laying them off and starting a search for employees who have the skills they need.

Trump kept to some of the president’s talking points on the economy, such as wanting to get those “sitting on the sidelines” in the American economy to join the workforce.

She said Republicans, through the tax code and new legislation, have expanded child tax credits and paid family leave in ways the government failed to do in the past decade. High child care costs, she said, keep Americans from working or accepting promotions.

Immigration and tech

When asked by Shapiro about the country’s current immigration uncertainty, because the American tech industry relies heavily on immigrants, Trump said the president agrees the system is “totally flawed.”

“The president said he thinks that it’s absolutely insane that we educate immigrants from across the world, and as they’re about to start their business, open their business, become employers, we throw them out of our country,” Trump said.

The Trump administration is in charge of enforcing the country’s immigration statutes, including those on deportation.

Trump said both political parties would agree that immigration needs an overhaul, and she hopes such a change would allow the U.S. to attract and keep skilled workers.

“But it can’t displace the investment that needs to be made in the core skills for marginalized Americans,” Trump said. “So, that’s where we have to be careful. We need to do both.”

In response to Trump’s speech, Nevada State Democratic Party Executive Director Alana Mounce said in a statement that Ivanka Trump “can’t spin the truth” that “Donald Trump has been a devastating failure to working families.”

Mounce said Trump has increased health care and tax cost burdens on Nevadans, while also hurting women’s rights in the workplace.

Contact Rory Appleton at rappleton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0276. Follow @RoryDoesPhonics on Twitter.