Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future

The order directs the Secretaries of Labor, Commerce, and Education to conduct a comprehensive review of all federal workforce development programs and report to the White House Domestic Policy office and the Office of Management and Budget. The report must identify ineffective programs for reform, elimination, or funding redirection; administrative and process improvements; opportunities to invest in upskilling incumbent workers; and strategies to promote alternative credentials to four-year college degrees mapped to employer skill needs. A separate plan, due 30 days later, must outline how to reach and surpass one million new active registered apprentices, including expanding apprenticeships into new industries and linking them to federal student aid and the Perkins V career-education law.

The order also directs the three secretaries to improve public transparency on performance outcomes — earnings and employment data — for all federally supported workforce programs. It does not itself eliminate, consolidate, or fund any program; all operative changes require future administrative or legislative action based on the reports the order commissions.

American workers seeking skilled-trade and apprenticeship opportunities, prospective employers in emerging and reindustrialized industries, current participants in federally funded workforce development programs, grantees subject to federal reporting requirements, and community colleges and career-and-technical-education programs connected to federal student aid.

Workers enrolled in or applying to federally funded job training programs may see those programs restructured, consolidated, or eliminated based on the reports this order commissions. Employers in high-growth sectors and apprenticeship programs could gain new federal support, while programs deemed ineffective risk losing funding.

The three secretaries work jointly and report to two recipients — the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and the OMB Director — on parallel tracks: a 90-day workforce strategy report and a 120-day apprenticeship expansion plan. Neither report is self-executing; each feeds a future decision process. The transparency directive has no deadline or enforcement mechanism stated. A standard severability clause limits the order's effect to available appropriations, and a non-self-execution clause bars any private right to enforce it.