President Barack Obama speaks during a tour of a classroom Wednesday at Community College of Allegheny County near Pittsburgh. Obama visited the college and spoke about the importance of jobs-driven skills training.

WASHINGTON— President Barack Obama promoted his latest attempt to help U.S. workers compete in the global “skills race,” announcing $600 million in grants for job-training programs focused on industry partnerships and apprenticeships.

Speaking at the Community College of Allegheny County near Pittsburgh, Obama warned Wednesday that other countries have done more to train workers and that the U.S. is in danger of slipping behind as it tries to rebuild its battered manufacturing sector.

“We can’t stop technology. And you’ve got a global economy now where we’ve got to compete. We live in a 21st-century global economy. Jobs know no borders,” Obama said.

“Other countries know this. Countries like Germany, China, India — they’re working every day to out-educate our kids so they can outcompete our businesses,” he said. “And each year, frankly, it shows that they’re making more progress than we are. We’re still ahead, we’ve still got the best cards, but they’re making some good decisions.”

Earlier this year, Obama gave Vice President Joe Biden the task of evaluating and improving the tangle of federal job-training programs, many of which a Government Accountability Office report in 2011 called duplicative. Obama and Biden both made the trip to the CCAC in Oakdale to tout the results of that work.

Obama announced $500 million in competitive grants, the fourth installment of $2 billion already allocated for job training. This set of grants will give priority to programs that include direct partnerships between national industry groups and community colleges in an effort to ensure schools are offering training in the skills most in demand.

The money also will pay for programs that try to standardize certification programs or encourage better collection of data on the work force in states.

An additional $100 million will be directed toward apprenticeship programs. Administration officials said that such training is not used enough and that 87 percent of workers who complete an apprenticeship are hired by the employers and earn an average of $50,000.