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NEMA Launches Career Development Platform to Power the Electroindustry Workforce of the Future

William Attardi on September 19, 2025

 NEMA announced NEMA Academy, a dynamic new online learning platform designed to strengthen technical training and workforce development across the electroindustry.  The future of manufacturing demands a workforce skilled in robotics, AI, digital tools, and industrial automation, and NEMA Academy is designed to meet that need. Built for professionals at every stage of their careers, the platform provides access to more than 1,400 education and certification opportunities in multiple languages. Courses span a range of topics, including NEMA standards, policy issues, supply chain resilience, emergency preparedness, lighting, and more. With new content added regularly, NEMA also is working with Congress to advance comprehensive workforce development legislation to ensure long-term support for the electrical industry’s workforce. The bipartisan Veterans Energy Transition (VET) Actwill help match veterans with a range of technical and operational skills with the manufacturers of critical electrical equipment and components.  NEMA Launches Career Development Platform To Power the Electroindustry Workforce of the Future – NEMA

America’s Talent Strategy: Building the Workforce for the Golden Age

William Attardi on August 27, 2025

President Trump has set a bold economic strategy to reindustrialize America, dominate the artificial intelligence (AI) frontier, and reclaim control over the levers of national prosperity. Achieving this vision requires a workforce system capable of propelling American workers into high-wage careers, upholding the dignity of hard work, and delivering the talent businesses need to power the nation’s economic resurgence. This strategy lays out a comprehensive plan to address the workforce needs of American companies, integrate existing workforce development systems to maximize efficiency and effectiveness, provide accountability for workforce training programs, upskill incumbent American workers, and develop alternatives to 4-year college degrees. The goal is to build a durable system that expands our labor force, helps workers advance, supports employers in meeting their needs, and positions the country to lead in today’s economy and to transform our national workforce investments to meet the talent needs of employers, empower more Americans to access high-wage careers, and reindustrialize the United States America’s Talent Strategy: Building the Workforce for the Golden Age

Amazon Is on the Cusp of Using More Robots Than Humans in Its Warehouses

William Attardi on July 1, 2025

The    e-commerce giant, which has spent years automating tasks previously done by humans in its facilities, has deployed more than one million robots in those workplaces, Amazon said. That is the most it has ever had and near the count of human workers at the facilities. One of Amazon’s newer robots, called Vulcan, has a sense of touch that enables it to pick items from numerous shelves. Amazon has taken recent steps to connect its robots to its order-fulfillment processes, so the machines can work in tandem with each other and with humans.  For some Amazon workers, the increasing automation has meant replacing menial, repetitive work lifting, pulling and sorting with more skilled assignments managing the machines.  Amazon is also rolling out artificial intelligence in its warehouses, Chief Executive Andy Jassy said recently, “to improve inventory placement, demand forecasting, and the efficiency of our robots.” Amazon said it will cut the size of its total workforce in the next several years. Exclusive | Amazon Is on the Cusp of Using More Robots Than Humans in Its Warehouses – WSJ

Google to Fund NECA Training Program

William Attardi on May 2, 2025

Google is announcing a new paper and support for an effort to train 100,000 electrical workers and 30,000 new apprentices in the United States. This is Google’s news release: AI presents the United States with a generational opportunity for extraordinary innovation and growth. The deployment of AI will grow the American economy, create jobs, accelerate scientific advances and more. Fully realizing these opportunities requires an effort to rapidly increase the capacity of the nation’s existing, sometimes antiquated energy system. This in turn requires accelerating innovation and investment in advanced energy technologies; optimizing use of the existing grid and unlocking construction of new transmission infrastructure; and developing the labor force needed to build new energy infrastructure. Through shared public and private efforts to introduce and support training programs like this one, the U.S. can develop a model for training the next generation workforce. Google to Fund NECA Training Program – electrifiED

Remembering the Solemn Purpose of Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States observed on the last Monday in May to honor and mourn U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the armed forces. The holiday traces its roots to the years immediately following the American Civil War (1861–1865), which caused massive casualties—roughly 620,000 soldiers dead, about 2% of the U.S. population at the time. Communities across the North and South began spontaneously decorating the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers, wreaths, and flags, a practice that gave rise to the original name: Decoration Day. On May 5, 1868, Major General John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)—a powerful Union veterans’ organization—issued General Order No. 11. This proclaimed May 30, 1868, as a nationwide “Decoration Day” to honor those who died in the Civil War. After World War I, the holiday expanded to honor all American service members who died in any war, not just the Civil War.  In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to create more three-day weekends for federal employees. This moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, effective in 1971, when it was also officially named “Memorial Day.” As one 1868 quote put it: “That Nation which respects and honors its dead, shall ever be respected and honored itself.”