History

• Preseident Kennedy proposed employee training and development for new technology.The White House image by dwight9592 from Fotolia.com
  
  "We stand at the edge of a new frontier---the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams, a frontier of unknown opportunities." For President John F. Kennedy, who spoke these words during his acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention, this new frontier included improving the economy and implementing fair wage standards along with worker training and development. Democratic senators introduced the bill in 1961 in Congress, which approved it. President Kennedy signed it into law.
  
  

Description

• Congress passed and the President signed MDTA in 1962.capitol image by Andrew Breeden from Fotolia.com
  
  MDTA of 1962 led the way for what would be the first in a series of legislative initiatives over the next 50 years. Representative Dominick Daniels, in an article published in "Manpower Legislation" journal, described it as part of a process by government and business for "identifying where future job shortages might exist and training the personnel to fit these categories."
  
  

Need

• February 1961 unemployment reached 5.4 million.street hobo image by Alexey Klementiev from Fotolia.com
  
  Up until the 1950s, manufacturing and the factory assembly line drove the US economy. But in the mid-1950s, things began to change. Advances in technology allowed factories to begin automating portions of the manufacturing processes at the same time that the service sector began to grow due to increased consumer spending and the introduction of fast foods restaurants.
  
  The changing economy led to increased unemployment and, by February 1961, the number of unemployed workers reached 5.4 million. Laid-off workers lacked the skills to work with automation, new technology or in the service industry. In addition, with the Cold War under way and the Soviet Union launching the first Sputnik into orbit, the demand for people trained in math and science exploded; the US education and training systems could not meet the need.
  
  

Features

• Federal funds allowed local agencies to provide training for the unemployed.dollars image by Mikhail Olykainen from Fotolia.com
  
  MDTA had two main parts: The Department of Labor administered a grant system for funding public and private agencies to provide job training and counseling services, and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (today known as Department of Health and Human Services) worked with existing state and local agencies to fund local training programs.
  
  

Results

• Evolving technology required new training.technology image by Stanisa Martinovic from Fotolia.com
  
  Over a three-year period, approximately 200,000 people participated in MDTA-funded job training programs. In 1966 Earl Main and his associates at the University of Chicago, compared groups of workers who attended MDTA funded training programs with those who did not. Their research found that those who completed the programs found full-time jobs more often than those who did not attend the programs. Workers who completed MDTA training showed an average increase in wages of 19 percent when compared to those who did not attend the training.
  
  The Manpower Development and Training Act funded workplace development and training jobs for three years. Rather than renewing MDTA, Congress passed The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created the Job Corps and the Work Incentive Program (WIN) in 1967.