Economic Development Quarterly

Career Explorer provides customized career exploration tools for workforce development staff and job seekers in Michigan. There are two separate Career Explorer modules: a staff-mediated service and a self-service for job seekers. The system was developed by the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics in collaboration with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Michigan Works! Southwest. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Workforce Investment and the Schmidt Futures’ Data for the American Dream (D4AD) project. In this paper, the authors describe the machine learning models behind the predictive analytics of the frontline staff-mediated version of Career Explorer. These models were trained on program administrative data. Additionally, the authors describe the self-service version of Career Explorer, which provides clients with customized labor market information based on published U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Career Explorer became an active feature of Michigan's online reemployment services system in June 2021.

While workforce development can create skilled workers and better jobs, employer engagement is often limited. This article analyzes the case of Tennessee Pathways and draws on interviews with highly engaged employers, including those that hosted youth worker interns. The author investigates how employers accounted for their involvement and how program design shaped the benefits they perceived. Despite a traditional focus on skills gaps, the author finds that most employers sustained their engagement due to workforce challenges rooted in a mismatch between new hires’ expectations and the realities of the job, which resulted in high turnover of incumbent adult workers. Employers perceived that youth programs addressed this issue by fostering “career embeddedness” and deepening youth workers’ commitment to a nascent career interest or by redirecting them to other viable options. The author argues that practitioners should promote the potential of workforce development to yield long-term workforce reproduction and next-generation career development.

The demand for workers with information technology skills is high, creating a challenge for today's workforce system to train enough people. In response, nonprofit organizations and workforce development agencies have developed place-based training programs for information technology jobs. The intricate nature of these jobs necessitates innovative training approaches that address both technical proficiency and cultural competence. Drawing from interviews and case studies, this analysis highlights the importance of rigorous prescreening processes, structured support for graduates transitioning to employment, and collaboration with employers in ensuring the success and sustainability of place-based information technology training programs. It is recommended that programs incorporate these elements into their design to effectively meet the demands of the labor market and foster diversity and inclusion within the technology sector.

Several regions throughout the country are at a crossroads in identifying and developing a sizeable workforce to support President Biden's 2030 zero-emission goals. This case study investigates the Youngstown–Warren–Boardman region's burgeoning viability in supplying the needed workers in its local electric vehicle battery manufacturing industry. This article presents findings from a mixed-methods approach that includes a supply–demand analysis of the region using Lightcast job-postings data; an analysis of the National Labor Exchange data to identify the most common and desirable skills by employers; a curriculum mapping analysis of local educational institutions training programs; and a cost–benefit analysis of program-educated employees that compares employees with only a high school education. Regional stakeholder interviews verified and clarified the findings. The authors conclude with a few partnership-driven recommendations that provide opportunities to strengthen and expand the electric vehicle battery manufacturing workforce for the Youngstown–Warren–Boardman and similar regions.

Ohio's manufacturing industry sector partnerships (ISP) are economic development and workforce development efforts that rely on community development inputs. The authors posit that graduates of regional, sector-led, industry-specific workforce training programs constitute a common pool resource, as described by Elinor Ostrom, because while hiring graduates is rival, it is not excludable. This creates a workforce version of the tragedy of the commons because these programs often have experiential learning components in workplaces and require funding support, mentoring, and the long-term commitment of company leaders to a partnership. The training programs will flounder if participating employers do not earn a return on their resource expenditures. The output of the partnership program is trained workers, while its primary outcome is the production of goods and services. The economic mobility of the recipients of ISP training is a by-product, or secondary outcome, of the partnership's activities