The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation has announced grants totaling $6.3 million from Walmart and the Annie E. Casey, Charles Koch, and Lumina foundations in support of efforts to expand access to job opportunities and ensure a strong workforce.

The funding will support workforce initiatives including Talent Pipeline Management (TPM), the T3 Innovation Network, and Talent Finance, which address three major workforce challenges: ensuring that workers are developing the right skills to meet employer needs, helping employers use data to match the right people with the right jobs, and connecting learners and workers with more affordable tools to pay for education and skills training. The grants also will enable the TPM Academy — which trains business, workforce, and economic development leaders to help them build scalable, sustainable pipelines of talent that align with employers' specific needs — to build a virtual training platform that will support a unique learning experience and credentialing on a national scale, launch specialized academies that make training more accessible for underrepresented workers and learners, and prepare them with job-ready skills for in-demand employment opportunities.

"This worker shortage is a crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic and a broken workforce training system," said Cheryl Oldham, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Center for Education and Workforce. "Our focus at the Center for Education and Workforce is on mobilizing the business community to tackle the most pressing issues facing American workers, students and on-the-job learners, and this investment in our programs and expertise enhances our ability to support our country's economic success at such a critical time."

(Photo credit: GettyImages)