BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 1574

By: McClendon

Economic & Small Business Development

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Interested parties note that part-time workers make up a significant percentage of the aggregate national workforce and that, accordingly, part-time workers comprise a substantial portion of the Texas workforce. There are, the parties further note, numerous individuals who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. The parties contend that it would be advantageous for the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) to gather and evaluate reliable data related to permanent, temporary, and part-time or full-time employment and to determine whether there are sufficient full-time jobs to accommodate the number of job applicants seeking full-time employment. H.B. 1574 seeks to address this issue by requiring the TWC to gather, evaluate, and maintain data relating to the existing workforce and employment needs, trends, and opportunities in Texas and to prepare a detailed report summarizing the data.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

H.B. 1574 amends the Labor Code to require the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) to gather, evaluate, and maintain data, including relevant statistical information, relating to the existing workforce and employment needs, trends, and opportunities in Texas and requires the collected information to include specified categories of information, including among those categories information regarding the number of full-time, part-time, permanent, and temporary workers by industry and region and a comparison between the number of available positions offering full-time employment and those offering part-time employment. The bill requires TWC to use resources and services available to the commission to implement the required measures and authorizes TWC to coordinate with federal and state agencies as necessary or appropriate to determine any of the required information, apply for and use grant-based funding programs, and negotiate and enter into contracts with not-for-profit entities.

H.B. 1574 requires TWC, initially not later than October 1, 2014, and subsequently not later than October 1 of each year, to submit to the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house of representatives, and the presiding officer of each standing committee or subcommittee of the legislature with primary jurisdiction over workforce development matters a detailed report summarizing the data collected by the commission for the most recent state fiscal year and any suggestions and recommendations for legislative action the commission considers appropriate resulting from its analysis of that data. The bill requires TWC to maintain in a prominent location on its publicly accessible Internet website for use by job seekers and the public a link to a summary of the most recent data collected by the commission under the bill's provisions.

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2013.