Donnelly bill seeks employer role in worker training

A bill authored by Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly would require the federal government to seek employers' input on what job skills are needed when the Department of Labor is designing training programs.

Donnelly told reporters in a conference call Wednesday that his Skills Gap Strategy Act seeks to ensure the Department of Labor has a concerted strategy to address skills-gap issues, The Journal Gazette reported.

Donnelly said thousands of jobs are going unfilled in Indiana because people don't have the skills needed to fill those spots. He said about 600,000 middle-skilled and high-skilled manufacturing jobs are left unfilled nationwide because of an undertrained workforce.