U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Thomas Perez praised the Senate's confirmation vote of Loretta Lynch and addressed the country's labor issues ranging from wages, Obamacare and unions.

While attending The Atlantic Summit on the Economy on Thursday afternoon, Perez briefly commented on Lynch's confirmation vote to succeed Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general. The Senate approved Lynch with a 56-43 vote, including 10 Republicans in favor.

"I'm thrilled for Loretta. She is a fantastic attorney and frankly and equally important person," said Perez, who added it was "an honor" to work with Holder, and he's confident Lynch will do "an equally fantastic job making sure justice is justice for all."

Perez's main focus at the summit was on the labor market. He acknowledged the 61 consecutive months of job growth in the private sector since the Great Recession.

Furthermore, he noted there are five million job openings currently available across the U.S. and a tenth of those are in the information-technology sector. Perez said the Labor Department is spending "a lot of time to dramatically expand investments" in IT, including collaboration with organizations and higher education institutions.

Perez referenced the fact the U.S. is the only industrialized nation without a federal paid leave law. He identified Rhode Island as one of the few states to approve a paid leave law.

"We have 5.5 million more women in the workforce and yet we haven't kept pace," said Perez, adding that the topic is not a partisan issue since many countries have implemented paid-sick leave laws regardless of conservative or liberal ideologies.

The Labor secretary also addressed the three important pieces of advice that employees receive at work: medical, legal and financial. Perez revealed there have been too many examples when people would get advice "based on commissions than what's' the consumer's best interest."

"The cost of conflicted advice can be billions of dollars," Perez continued. "We can fix that."

"The challenge is how to build an America that works for everyone," he later added.

Perez emphasized that worker input is important for a company's growth, saying he is "chronically optimistic and chronically impressed" with the ideas suggested within the Labor Department's employees.

In regards to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also referred to as Obamacare, Perez defended the law and its effects on labor. He mentioned the common critique was that the ACA was going to be a "jobs killer" in the health industry, but based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, that critique has been proven wrong, The Labor secretary said the BLS data showed that's an industry still producing jobs.

"We're on the right side of the facts, the right side of history...just because you say something (negative about the ACA) a thousand times, doesn't make it a fact."

On unions, Perez said he's believer of workers' voice, whether through unions or other means.

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