Labor

Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI) introduced the Telehealth Benefit Expansion for Workers Act (H.R.824), bipartisan legislation which would expand access to telehealth services by classifying these services as an excepted benefit for employer-sponsored health coverage. 

The House voted 221-206, mostly along party lines, to pass legislation requiring federal agencies to revert to their pre-pandemic telework policies, although the measure is likely to meet stiff resistance in the Democratically controlled Senate. The Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems Act (H.R. 139), introduced by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), would require agencies to “reinstate and apply the telework policies, practices and levels . . . in effect on December 31, 2019” within 30 days of the bill’s enactment.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) is requesting information on successful approaches related to digital skills attainment and competency development in education and training efforts, the strategies our education and workforce development systems are employing to assess and ensure individuals are digitally resilient, and any challenges the education and public workforce systems are facing. DOL is also requesting information on strategies to advance digital equity and inclusion in the workforce.

Telecommunications infrastructure will be built, operated, maintained, and upgraded over time by a well-trained, highly skilled, workforce of broadband industry professionals—tower climbers and technicians, fiber optic technicians and fiber splicers, RF engineers, overhead and underground utility installers, small cell technicians, trencher and heavy equipment operators, and many others.

Despite increased investment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of households in the rural United States still lack adequate access to high-speed internet. In this study, we evaluate a wireless broadband network deployed in Turney, a small, underserved rural community in northwest Missouri. In addition to collecting survey data before and after this internet intervention, we collected pre-treatment and post-treatment survey data from comparison communities to serve as a control group.

Representatives Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) and Robin Kelly (D-IL-02) introduced legislation (H.R.

There's a wave of jobs that will result from $1.2 trillion in direct government spending from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Recent legislation included big increases in federal funding for the deployment of broadband, which is increasingly critical to daily life, but unavailable in some areas. Our analysis found that thousands more skilled workers will be needed to deploy broadband and 5G funded by recent federal programs. If this work is spread over 10 years, the funding would support about 23,000 additional workers at its peak. A shorter timespan could require even more of them. We found mixed evidence on whether there's a shortage of these workers.

With trained telecommunications workers in short supply and in high demand across the country, investing in workforce development is critical over the next five years. Fortunately, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program provides funding, regulation, and guidance to create and sustain the personnel necessary to build and maintain the nation’s critical infrastructure. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allows the $42.45 billion in BEAD money to be used in workforce and job training.

Institutions that provide essential services, including education, health care, government functions, and the workforce, have a duty to make their services universally accessible. But because of the persistence of the digital divide, these institutions cannot fully integrate and modernize internet-based technologies into their services; doing so would effectively deny service to people who cannot adequately access the internet. As a result, institutions have been unable to fully leverage the benefits of technology to make their services even more effective, efficient, and innovative.