WASHINGTON – The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), the global voice for the technology sector's leading companies, issued the following statement from President and CEO Dean Garfield on President Barack Obama’s new TechHire initiative providing education, training, and skills development opportunities needed for Americans to fill open information technology (IT) jobs:

“As the President noted today, there are over half a million information technology jobs that are going unfilled.  We agree that more can be done to help American workers, especially in underserved and underrepresented communities, get the skills and training they need to fill these good paying jobs, and the technology sector is a strong partner in that effort.

“Our workforce diversity challenges, in particular, should be seen as a canary in the coal mine that educating more Americans for these open IT jobs is also an important part of the equation.  We hope the President’s initiative will help breathe new life into the important conversation on how boosting 21st century education is really an investment in a stronger economy for all of us.”

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