The Manufacturing Institute and its partners in the NAM-Endorsed Skills Certification System set a goal to issue 500,000 certifications by the end of 2016. In June, 2011, at an event at Northern Virginia Community College, President Obama highlighted the Skills Certification System as a model for industry-based credentials and endorsed our goal of 500,000 certifications.
In April, 2012, the Institute and its partners announced that 84,738 certifications had been issued in the first year to students and incumbent workers that cover in-demand, portable skill-sets necessary across multiple manufacturing sectors. With as many as 600,000 manufacturing jobs going unfilled today, this is an important step in getting unemployed Americans back to work and maintaining the competitiveness of our manufacturing economy.
