BUILDS Act

Building U.S. Infrastructure by Leveraging Demands for Skills or the BUILDS Act

This bill requires the Department of Labor to award implementation or renewal grants to eligible industry or sector partnerships to achieve certain strategic objectives with respect to targeted infrastructure industries (e.g., transportation, construction, energy, information technology, or utilities industries).

Such strategic objectives must include

• recruiting key stakeholders in the targeted infrastructure industries;
• supporting the training needs of multiple businesses in such industries;
• facilitating actions that lead to economies of scale by aggregating multiple businesses' training and education needs;
• helping grant recipients who provide career and technical education and training in aligning curricula, entrance requirements, and programs to the targeted infrastructure's needs and required credentials;
• providing information on grant activities to state agencies to enable them to inform unemployment compensation recipients of employment and training opportunities;
• helping partner businesses to attract and retain workers from a diverse job seeker base; and
• expanding the number of individuals with a barrier to employment, who have access to training and education opportunities that are aligned with business needs, and providing those workers with support to address such barrier.