Press Releases

Fifteen Senators Call for Funding for Labor Dept. to Survey Contingent Workforce & Employee Training

Support full funding for Bureau of Labor Statistics, including Obama Administration requests for $1.6 million for contingent worker survey and $3 million to conduct survey on employer-provided worker training

Mar 22 2016

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) led more than a dozen of their colleagues in pushing for full funding for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, including resources to conduct two surveys that will improve policymakers’ understanding of the 21st century workforce.

The Senators urged the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund the Obama Administration’s FY 2017 budget requests for $1.6 million to add an annual supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) to capture data on contingent work arrangements, and $3 million for a survey on employer-provided training.

“Collecting this data is critical to understanding overall trends in our workforce, both for workers in more traditional full-time employment, and for workers in contingent arrangements. In addition, this data will help us better understand specific parts of our economy that are rapidly changing,” wrote the Senators in a letter to leaders of the Appropriations Committee. “In recent years, we have seen an explosion in new technology and on-demand platforms that allow individuals to monetize their time, skills, cars and spare rooms in ways that have fundamentally altered this sector of the American labor force. We need new and better information so we can understand the potential policy ramifications when workers, whether by personal choice or economic necessity, are making a living with no connection to a single employer, or without access to the benefits, training and worker protections typically provided through traditional full-time employment.”

The Department of Labor recently announced that it would launch a new round of the Contingent Worker and Alternative Work Arrangement Supplement (CWS), a survey which measures the size and scope of the contingent workforce, in May 2017.  The Current Population Survey (CPS), which is considered the gold standard of measuring who is doing what in the American workforce, has not collected data about the size and scope of the contingent workforce since 2005.

In addition, the last time BLS conducted a survey of the amount of formal training that employers provided or financed for their employees was in September 1995—more than 20 years ago. 

“Reinstating this survey will help fill gaps in our knowledge about our workforce training system by providing a reliable sense of the extent to which employers provide or sponsor formal job skills training,” the Senators noted.

In addition to Sens. Warner and Warren, the letter was signed by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ed Markey (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The full text of the letter is below. A PDF of the signed letter is available here.

Dear Chairman Cochran, Ranking Member Mikulski, Chairman Blunt, and Ranking Member Murray:

We respectfully request that as you begin drafting the Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill, you provide full funding for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), including $1.6 million in funding to add an annual supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) to capture data on contingent work arrangements and $3 million for a survey on employer training. We also ask that you include specific language aimed at improving data collection and assessing the true impact of new employment trends. 

Collecting this data is critical to understanding overall trends in our workforce, both for workers in more traditional full-time employment, and for workers in contingent arrangements. In addition, this data will help us better understand specific parts of our economy that are rapidly changing.  In recent years, we have seen an explosion in new technology and on-demand platforms that allow individuals to monetize their time, skills, cars and spare rooms in ways that have fundamentally altered this sector of the American labor force. We need new and better information so we can understand the potential policy ramifications when workers, whether by personal choice or economic necessity, are making a living with no connection to a single employer, or without access to the benefits, training and worker protections typically provided through traditional full-time employment. 

The Department of Labor (DOL) has not run the Contingent Worker and Alternative Work Arrangement Supplement (CWS), a survey which measures the size and scope of the contingent workforce, since 2005.  We appreciate your efforts to work with members of Congress during last year’s appropriations process to boost funding for the BLS by $17 million for FY2016, and to include language directing BLS to increase data collection and reporting on new trends in employment.  We were further pleased to see that DOL recently announced it will run the CWS for the first time in over ten years in 2017. 

We urge you to continue and build on these efforts.  The Administration’s FY2017 budget proposal includes $1.6 million in funding to add an annual supplement to the CPS and capture data on contingent work and alternative work arrangements biennially. 

In addition, the last time BLS conducted a survey of the amount of formal training that employers provided or financed for their employees was in September 1995—more than 20 years ago.  Reinstating this survey will help fill gaps in our knowledge about our workforce training system by providing a reliable sense of the extent to which employers provide or sponsor formal job skills training. We are pleased that the Administration’s FY2017 budget proposal includes $3 million for the first year of activities for a survey of employer-provided training.  We urge you to support the Administration’s request and consider including report language instructing BLS to include on-demand platforms in the survey’s sample population.

Finally, we respectfully request that you include language directing BLS to increase data collection and reporting on new trends in employment in the FY2017 Labor-HHS appropriations bill.  This sort of data collection and analysis will take time, and continued, annual surveys will inform our long-term solutions to the unique policy needs of this economy.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of these provisions. These programs are of critical importance in providing us important data as we craft policy for the future American workforce.

Sincerely,