Workforce Policy for the Future: Connecting Skills and Careers

Abstract

Keywords

workforce development adult education career pathways sector workforce youth careers and education work-based learning talent development business employment requirements

While the economic recovery from the Great Recession of 2008–2009—until recent months—had produced job gains, low unemployment, and modest wage increases, it also revealed troubling new realities—uneven geographic recovery and losses, lower labor force participation, stagnant wages, heightened skill requirements, community and labor market disruptions from new technologies and job structures, and persistent and growing racial and ethnic disparities (Groshen and Holzer 2019). More broadly, questions about the sufficiency of work-based earnings and engagement have shaped new policy thinking about the future of work (Bartlett, Creticos, and Rahn 2019).

Longer-term workforce and education-related policy challenges have become more serious since the Great Recession and will continue past the current downturn. The collapse of the youth labor market has reinvigorated the debate about the “college for all” approach to the detriment of vocational training and integrated career pathways (Hamilton 2020; Hoffman and Schwartz 2017). At the same time, overall improvements in high school graduation are tempered by lower rates of persistence and graduation for students of color and for youth engaged in child welfare and juvenile justice systems or homeless. Student debt has exploded and college costs are increasing while the relative amount of resources dedicated to developing talent pipelines has diminished (Carnevale et al. 2019). On the positive side of the ledger, there has been substantial innovation in redesigning high schools, transition to college, guided pathways in college, career pathways, employer engagement, work-based learning, and youth and adult apprenticeships (Hoffman and Schwartz 2017; Carnevale, Gulish, and Strohl 2018).

This article shares a road map of state and local workforce policies that are effectively addressing current and emerging challenges. The focus is on local and state policies in part because many federal programs, such as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), are state-administered or block-granted and have local flexibility. This article concludes by identifying the requirements for successful state and local workforce policy in both urban and rural settings.

Urban/Rural Distinctions and Commonalities

An overall challenge for workforce policy is to formulate universal approaches that have flexibility to meet the needs of different populations, communities, industries, occupations, and economic contexts (Zaber, Karoly, and Whipkey 2019). Yet, this goal confronts contradictions in the way workforce and education policies are constructed—the United States embraces universal policies as the most efficient approach, but the nature of the legislative process supports the proliferation of piecemeal programs at all levels of government.

That said, rural communities face distinctive challenges, notably demographic in terms of population size and age structure (Johnson and Lichter 2019). Some rural communities have experienced long-term unemployment, dramatic economic shifts, and depopulation, while other communities have assets like natural resources and lifestyle economies. At the same time, a subset of metro areas are engines for economic growth, while shrinking, transitional, or legacy cities are still trying to reinvent themselves in the long aftermath of manufacturing and agriculture transformation (Mallach 2012).

Three challenges relate specifically to workforce development in rural communities and require more attention: tighter linkages between economic and workforce development; overcoming transportation barriers and lack of transit options, especially for low-income workers and students; and the lack of adequate infrastructure—broadband, education, and human and health services (Buckwalter and Toglia 2020). Blended online and in-person options will become the norm, but not all communities and institutions are equally prepared. Combining workforce training and entrepreneurship is already a distinctive feature of rural development strategies and should be expanded.

Policy Priorities

A comprehensive review of workforce policies is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, the article focuses on a handful of key policy approaches that have gained traction in states and that are salient for building workforce and education systems for the future. These policies all seek better alignment between individual skill building and the talent needs of employers. Policies focus on work and career pathways—ranging from high schools to employment and training institutions and to community colleges—and address improved labor market navigation and persistence. This article does not, for the most part, grapple with policies related to four-year college completion, the K–12 education continuum, or student debt (Turner 2018). Likewise, this article does not address job quality—minimum wage and paid leave, for example—although these and other work-support and basic needs policies influence training completion, job search, and job retention (The Annie E. Casey Foundation 2002). Finally, this article does not cover economic development policies except to emphasize the importance of talent pipelines for business attraction and expansion.

This article discusses four workforce and adult education policies: career pathways/sector approaches; high school, college, and career; adult and technical education; and work-based learning. Finally, this article briefly discusses the need for a strong and integrated workforce and adult education infrastructure to build and successfully implement all policies. Examples—urban and rural—are presented to illustrate specific policy initiatives and the role of high-quality education and training institutions. The policy examples demonstrate the need for state-level leadership to marshal the coordination and partnerships required to build effective workforce and education systems.

Career Pathways/Sector Workforce Strategies

An ongoing workforce challenge is aligning education and training curricula, certificates, and degrees with real-time employer preferences. This challenge is not just about a first job or initial step in a career but about the focusing and sequencing of education and training for students and workers to take advantage of longer-term career opportunities within and across industries. Building these pathways requires changes in the ways educational institutions structure and implement course work; build student navigation systems like guided pathways; and engage with business and economic development officials about growth industries, priority occupations, and skill requirements.

Career pathways and sector strategies emerged in the late 1990s—the former focusing on occupations and redesigning education systems and the latter focusing on organizing employer demand on an industry basis to meet critical job needs (Giloth 2004; Ganzglass, Foster, and Newcomer 2015). The overriding goal of both was to better connect workforce development with real career opportunities. Each of these approaches involves state policy frameworks that identify the most important industries and careers, mapping of career pathways, aligning educational requirements to careers, providing financial supports for sector intermediaries, and supporting demonstration projects to develop evidence. This has not been easy given the dismantling of traditional career ladders and the nonlinear career progression challenges to traditional training approaches. More recently, principles and lessons of career pathways and sector strategies are being embraced as complementary in part because community and technical colleges function as a common training platform (Conway and Giloth 2015).

The Career Pathways Initiative in Arkansas began serving TANF-eligible participants with state legislative authorization in 2005. It blends funding from multiple state agencies and operates in twenty-five community colleges across the state in career pathways such as health care (Arkansas Division of Higher Education 2019). Arkansas Northeastern College, serving Mississippi County, features transportation services (Opportunity Bus), subsidized employment, and a grassroots approach to recruiting and supporting students (Hunt 2020).

As of 2017, twenty-two states supported sector workforce partnerships by providing funding, technical assistance, and program initiatives to build better connections with groups of employers (Wilson 2017). Maine’s Aquaculture in Shared Waters is a sectoral strategy serving communities on Maine’s 3,500 miles of tidal coastline experiencing declines in lobster and shrimp. Their aquaculture training program—mostly for former fishermen—focuses on shellfish and sea vegetables and combines skill training and business development. A multisectoral partnership of state agencies, university centers, and community development finance organizations leads the effort (Cowperthwaite and Murphy 2019). A key partner, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., is also addressing rural “childcare deserts” by combining early learning training and business development for starting up childcare businesses (Biemann 2020).

High School, College, and Career

For the past decade, there has been renewed interest in creating better connections between high school, career, and college—a youth and young adult version of career pathways (Hamilton 2020; Hoffman and Schwartz 2017). While college is not for everyone in a lockstep traditional model proceeding forward after high school graduation, some postsecondary training is needed to succeed for better-paying jobs of the future (Carnevale, Gulish, and Strohl 2018). Students face a bewildering set of career and educational choices without much informed guidance, and work opportunities for most young people, where they could get hands-on experience, are not as prevalent as in the past. Many young people are still struggling to get a foothold in the labor market in their twenties. And employers have voiced concern about their inability to develop talent pipelines with young people that meet future workforce needs.

Many states have set goals for academic and career readiness but have typically made the most progress on the former, and in that case mostly in terms of four-year college readiness. A number of states and regions, however, are now adopting a new high school and beyond approach that involves reinvigorated career and technical education (CTE), career exposure, early college and/or dual enrollment, work-based learning opportunities, and college access programs. There is a great deal of innovation in this space since the demise of the School to Work movement of the 1990s—including career academies, linked learning, and work-based learning (Hamilton 2020). These examples almost always require new or revamped state policies and new coordinating mechanisms like intermediaries that can convene multiple systems and interface with employers.

The Pathways to Prosperity Network includes states and regions innovating to create better linkages between high school, college, and career. Former Governor Jack Markell of Delaware put together a state team to create Delaware Pathways, which has strengthened CTE pathways in thirteen industries. The hope is to enroll 50,000 students by 2020. Pathways Tennessee is another example that built upon a strong state team and set of policies. In the rural counties of Upper Cumberland, CTE pathways are complemented by college dual enrollment, blended learning for college competencies, and innovations in financial aid for college (Hoffman and Schwartz 2017).

Adult and Technical Education

Changes in the economy mean that high schools must deliver diplomas with competencies. Literacy and numeracy are becoming more important for many jobs across many industries—whether manufacturing, health care, or information technology. In Baltimore, for example, 60 percent of high school graduates do not have high school competencies, hence precipitating a new effort named Grad2Careers that prepares recent graduates for sector-based training that requires tenth-grade reading and math (Baltimore’s Promise 2019). More broadly, recent studies find that 17–28 percent of the U.S. working age population have literacy and numeracy challenges, and many immigrant workers have minimal English skills (U.S. Department of Education 2015). Literacy is a top-tier workforce issue that receives second- or third-tier attention.

Literacy is complex and daunting in two related ways. First, literacy challenges include people who are several years away from reading at tenth-grade levels, those who have below sixth-grade reading levels, those below third grade, and those who have literacy challenges in multiple languages. Simply, there is no one literacy intervention. Moreover, literacy levels do not always equate with reading for comprehension and analysis, and increasingly, literacy includes digital literacy skills. Second, improving literacy takes a great deal of time—more time for those with the largest literacy gaps—and precious time for those who work and have families. One of the most troubling literacy challenges is experienced by high school graduates who enter community college only to find themselves trapped in development education courses and saddled with student debt. These students thought they were going to college but were making up for time lost in K–12 education (Holzer and Baum 2017).

In the early 2000s, the State of Washington invented the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program that blends funding, curricula, and team teaching in the classroom for adult and technical education at the same time, contextualizing and accelerating student progress. I-BEST has spread to many other states (Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges 2020).

In Mississippi, Jones College—with a main campus in Ellisville and serving eight counties—is implementing the state’s version of I-BEST called Mississippi Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (MIBEST), with a focus on occupations such as welding, logistics, and health care. The college addresses student financial challenges by providing gas cards, student supplies, and campus meal plans (Mwase 2020).

More broadly, “bridge” programs are on-ramps to college or training that involve contextualized basic education and literacy, such as numeracy training for the construction trades, and focus on subpopulations like system-involved or immigrant youth. Finally, New York State’s Office of New Americans allocates state dollars to support English to Speakers of Other Languages classes to thousands of adults through nonprofits and other partners (Bergson-Shilcock 2018).

Work-based Learning

A recent longitudinal study by Brookings Institution and Child Trends concluded that early job experience, especially with a mentor, contributed to young people achieving good-paying jobs by age twenty-nine (Ross et al. 2018). Of course, many factors affect this outcome, including educational credentials, ongoing work experience, and job quality. There is growing recognition from a positive youth development perspective that youth–adult partnerships in the context of career pathways make a significant difference for young people acquiring skills and knowledge.

Nevertheless, work-based learning differs widely in quality, duration, and impact. For example, the ubiquity of summer youth employment programs has not translated into positive education or workforce results although some programs have incorporated social-–emotional training that has contributed to reducing violence (Ross and Kazis 2016). Other youth employment programs have attempted to move beyond the five-week summer format and extend throughout the school year, focusing on both educational and career goals (Halperin 2009). Another common work-based learning approach involves internships, after-school work experiences, or service-learning opportunities. These approaches can be effective and have longer-term impacts—experience and real jobs—if they are well organized, have high expectations for students and internship providers, and provide opportunities for preparing and reflecting upon internship experiences (Hoffman and Schwartz 2017).

Apprenticeship policies and programs—for adults and young people—are receiving more concerted attention and funding than in the past (Jacoby and Lerman 2019). And new forms of apprenticeships in a wider array of industries and firms are being developed. Apprenticeships involve close partnerships with employers that define career pathways, skill competencies, wage and benefit progression, and work-based learning requirements with mentoring over time. Youth apprenticeships are a variant of high school, college, and career with a clearer focus on structured work experience, real jobs, industry credentials, and college credit (Parton 2017). Both types of apprenticeship require a state policy role.

The National Governors Association (2020) has convened a multicohort, work-based learning academy for eighteen states focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics–intensive industries such as advanced manufacturing, health care, and information technology.

The Partnership for Advancing Youth Apprenticeships is a national funder consortium supporting the scaling of effective youth apprenticeship models. There are nine pilot sites and a learning network of thirty-four learning sites. The pilot sites include leading state efforts like CareerWise in Colorado and Youth Apprenticeship Carolina in South Carolina. In the latter, the state incentivizes employer participation through a tax credit of up to four years per apprentice (Hwang, White, and Parton 2019).

State Workforce and Adult Education Infrastructure

Why are state workforce and education systems so siloed? Why is it so difficult to create integrated workforce solutions in urban and rural communities? There are many reasons for our seemingly permanent government siloes. Some blame it on federal funding requirements—measures of progress, narrow interpretations of funding titles, and overall lack of flexibility to work with other systems. Other observers note that most governors and legislatures do not make workforce a priority, even when they champion talent-based economic development.

To say leadership is an essential ingredient for change seems obvious, but it is the place to start as many of the above policy initiatives show. It is not just about making workforce a campaign priority; it is about taking full advantage of state coordinating mechanisms and state planning requirements to create integrated, multisystem, data-driven workforce and education plans that support important outcomes related to skill acquisition, credentials, work experience, and business talent needs. Too much state money and capacity are ignored or underutilized because of lack of knowledge or the perception of political risk in doing things differently. Many states, however, have chosen to do things differently but not enough.

Another important component for coordinating workforce and education is integrated data systems. Integrated state and local administrative data support better planning, design, implementation, performance management, and evaluation—enabling feedback loops for building a twenty-first-century workforce system. Integrated data enable a disaggregation by community and population groups that support targeted workforce and education (Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy 2017).

Washington State’s Basic Food and Employment Training program has led the nation in using federal food stamp resources to enhance the skills and employability of food stamp–eligible students and workers (Kaz 2013). Washington State’s Department of Health and Human Services led the development of the 50/50 reimbursement program by revising its state plan, launching pilots with community nonprofits across the state, and making available state administrative data to document program impacts.

Rural communities have difficulty tapping food stamp employment and training resources because of a lack of available human services. Communities in North Dakota, Tennessee, and Arkansas have addressed this challenge by combining funding streams, integrating services in one-stop centers, and developing virtual services like assessments and case management (Kaz 2020).

The Arkansas Commission on Higher Education uses integrated, longitudinal data to conduct ongoing evaluations of the Arkansas Career Pathway Initiative. The combined use of TANF, community college, and employment administrative data supported the most recent rigorous evaluation that showed positive impacts on college completion and income (Arkansas Community Colleges 2019).

Conclusion

This article has shared a road map of multisector policies and programs that address the skill needs of the current and future workforce. These state policies are relevant across rural and urban communities, for different populations, and for different economic contexts. A central theme is matching education and training with skill and occupational requirements of diverse businesses. While maximizing the use of federal funds is a key, the best state policies generate and deploy new state financial resources.

Three lessons for practice cut across these policies. First, they all rely on flexible high-quality high schools, community colleges, and employment and training organizations that include online and business development services. Second, these policies are best advanced when state leadership sets priorities and organizes coordinated implementation. Finally, workforce and talent policies are responsive to business needs, so linking workforce and economic development is vital.

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge the suggestions and advice from Betsy Biemann, Laura Burgher, Patrice Cromwell, Allison Gerber Blanche Hunt, David Kaz, Mike Leach, Irene Lee, and Gloria Mwase.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Robert Giloth

References

Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy. 2017. The integrated data system approach: A vehicle to more effective and efficient data-driven solutions for government. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

Arkansas Community Colleges. 2019. College counts$: The Arkansas career pathways initiative: Summary research. https://www.collegecounts-us.squarespace.com/overview (accessed March 10, 2020).

Arkansas Division of Higher Education. 2019. Career pathways initiative. https://www.adhe.edu/career-pathways-initiative (accessed March 20, 2020).

Baltimore’s Promise. 2019. Grads2Careers. https://www.bmoreg2c.com (accessed March 2, 2020).

Bartlett

Mike

Creticos

Peter

Rahn

Madelyn

. 2019. Governor’s brief: Understanding and supporting the on-demand workforce. Washington, DC: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Institute for Work and the Economy.

Bergson-Shilcock

Amanda

. 2018. At the intersection of immigration and skills policy: A roadmap to mart policies for state and local leaders. Washington, DC: National Skills Coalition.

Biemann

Betsy

. 2020. Email correspondence about child-care training and business development in Maine. Brunswick, ME: Coast Enterprises.

Buckwalter

Veronica

Toglia

Jessica

. 2020. Accelerating opportunity in rural regions: Designing pathway programs for adults and non-traditional learners. Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future, February. https://www.jff.org/resources/accelerating-opportunity-rural-regions-designing-pathway-programs-adults-and-other-non-traditional-learners/ (accessed April 14, 2020).

Carnevale

Anthony

Gulish

Artem

Strohl

Jeff

. 2018. Educational adequacy in the twenty-first century. Washington, DC: Georgetown University, Center on Education and the Workforce.

10.

Carnevale

Anthony

Strohl

Jeff

Gulish

Artem

Werf

Martin Van daer

Campbell

Katherine

. 2019. The unequal race for good jobs: How whites made outsized gains in education and good jobs compared to blacks and Latinos. Washington, DC: Georgetown University, Center on Education and Workforce.

11.

Conway

Maureen

Giloth

Robert

, eds. 2015. Connecting people to work: Workforce intermediaries and sector strategies. New York: American Assembly, Columbia University.

12.

Cowperthwaite

Hugh

Murphy

Cynthia

. 2019. Changing tides: The future of jobs in Maine’s marine economy. In Taking Action: Positioning Low-Income Workers to Succeed in a Changing Economy, ed. Hatcher Group, 50–55. Baltimore, Maryland: Annie E. Casey Foundation and Joyce Foundation.

13.

Ganzglass

Evelyn

Foster

Marcie

Newcomer

Abigail

. 2015. Reforming the supply side of sector strategies: Innovations in community colleges. In Connecting people to work, ed. Conway

Maureen

Giloth

Robert

, 301–24. New York: American Assembly, Columbia University.

14.

Giloth

Robert

, ed. 2004. Workforce intermediaries for the twenty-first century. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

15.

Groshen

Erica

Holzer

Harry

. 2019. Improving employment and earnings in twenty-first century labor markets: An introduction. Russell Sage Foundation Journal of Social Sciences 5:1–19.

16.

Halperin

Robert

. 2009. The means to grow up: Reinventing apprenticeship as a developmental support in adolescence. New York: Routledge.

17.

Hamilton

Stephen, F

. 2020. Career pathways for all youth: Lessons from the school-to-work movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

18.

Hoffman

Nancy

Schwartz

Robert

. 2017. Learning for careers: The pathways to prosperity network. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Press.

19.

Holzer

Harry

Baum

Sandy

. 2017. Making college work: Pathways for success for disadvantaged students. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.

20.

Hunt

Blanche

. 2020. Arkansas Northeastern College, Email correspondence on rural I-BEST examples, April 13.

21.

Hwang

Joyce

Whiter

Taylor

Parton

Brent

. 2019. The PAYA network: Mapping the field of youth apprenticeship. Washington, DC: New America Foundation.

22.

Jacoby

Tamar

Lerman

Robert I.

. 2019. Industry-driven apprenticeship: What works what’s needed. Washington, DC: Opportunity America.

23.

Johnson

Kenneth

Lichter

Daniel

. 2019. Rural depopulation in a rapidly urbanizing America. Durham, NH: Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire.

24.

Kaz

David

. 2013. Basic food and employment and training: How Washington state brought to scale skills training for its food stamp population. In Transforming U.S. workforce development policies for the twenty-first century, eds. Horn

C. V.

Edwards

Greene

, 527–34. Kalamazoo, MI: The W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

25.

Kaz

David

. 2020. Seattle jobs initiative. Email correspondence on rural FSET examples, April 10.

26.

Mallach

Alan

, ed. 2012. Rebuilding America’s legacy cities: New directions for the industrial heartland. New York: American Assembly.

27.

Mwase

Gloria

. 2020. Email correspondence about MIBEST, April 14.

28.

National Governors Association. 2020. Scaling high-quality work-based learning. https://www.nga.org/work-based-learning (accessed February 27, 2020).

29.

Parton

Brent

. 2017. Youth apprenticeship in America today. Washington, DC: New America Foundation.

30.

Ross

Martha

Kazis

Richard

. 2016. Youth summer jobs progress: Aligning ends and means. Washington, DC: Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution.

31.

Ross

Martha

Moore

Kirsten Anderson

Murphy

Kelly

Bateman

Nicole

DeMand

Alex

Sacks

Vanessa

. 2018. Pathways to high-quality jobs for young adults. Washington, DC: Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution and Child Trends.

32.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation. 2002. Stronger links: New ways to connect low-skilled workers to better jobs. Baltimore, MD: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

33.

Turner

Sarah

. 2018. Elevating college completion. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute and Third Way.

34.

U.S. Department of Education. 2015. Making skills everyone’s business: A call to transform adult learning in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

35.

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. 2020. Integrated basic education skills and training (I-Best). https://:sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/i-best/ (accessed March 20, 2020).

36.

Wilson

Brent

. 2017. Skills in states: Sector partnership policy 50—state scan. Washington, DC: National Skills Coalition.

37.

Zaber

Melanie

Karoly

Lynn

Whipkey

Katie

. 2019. Reimagining the workforce and employment system for the 21st century and beyond. Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation.