President Obama has chosen Jane Oates as his nominee for assistant secretary of the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA).  The ETA is the DOL’s sub-agency tasked with administering federal government job training and worker dislocation programs, federal grants to states for public employment service programs, and unemployment insurance benefits. The ETA provides these services primarily through state and local workforce development systems.

Currently, Oates is the executive director of the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education and senior policy advisor to Governor Jon S. Corzine. Oates also serves on the State Employment and Training Commission (SETC), the State Commission on Adult Literacy and Education, New Jersey High School Redesign Task Force, the Public Sector Work Group and chairs the State Educators Health Benefits Commission and the Governor’s Schools Board of Overseers. Before taking her current position in 2006, Oates served as the senior policy advisor on higher education, national service, adult literacy, education research and workforce issues to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.