Officials Urge Expansion of CTE, Apprenticeships and Youth Employment Pipelines

Senators continued the Oct. 31 hearing with a second block focused on long‑term youth opportunity: career and technical education (CTE), apprenticeships and recreation as part of a workforce pipeline.

Haldane Davies, director of the Bureau of Economic Research, framed the discussion with demographic and labor figures: a post‑2010 population decline, high child poverty (33 percent territorywide in 2020; 42 percent for children under 5 in St. Croix), and a local youth unemployment estimate cited from external sources (World Bank estimate for youth unemployment cited in testimony). Davies recommended a territorial youth policy, stronger career‑cluster alignment to Vision 2040 and shared dashboards to guide spending.

Victor Somme III (assistant commissioner, Virgin Islands Department of Education) reported about 10,263 public school students across the…