By Rachel Tropp, Work First Fellow, 45th Street Manhattan
When I began my fellowship in the summer, I, along with many of the other fellows in the 2020-2021 cohort, had a blurry understanding of the workforce development field. Coming into political consciousness in the 21st century, we’ve noticed the changes in the labor market around us: The rise of gig work, from Uber to Instacart. The change from Internal Labor Markets, where you enter a company in your youth and grow within it until retirement, to the “job-hopping” behavior of millennials, who stay at each job an average of three years. The shift from manufacturing to service work.
Still, we approached the fellowship with an eye toward our specific policy interests, from criminal justice reform to healthcare accessibility to K-12 educational equity. We knew only that all the issues we cared about and had studied in school were deeply tied up in access to employment—and not just employment, but access to jobs with family-supporting wages and benefits that command dignity and respect and provide pathways for career advancement.
What we were less sure of was how the workforce development field operates to help clients achieve self-sufficiency through work. Who, aside from America Works, were the stakeholders? What were the key policies? How did the laws go from policy to practice? Aside from workers, who does the field serve? What history led us here, to the existence of America Works and the opportunity to become a Work First Fellow?
In the months since we began our work, the workforce development field has come into sharper focus, and we have been able to piece together how it operates, what “customers” it serves, and our place in its broader enterprise. Now, three months into our fellowships, we have the words to describe the phenomena we have witnessed in the labor market, and the knowledge of history we need to understand them. For those potential future fellows reading this, here are some key takeaways from the field:
1. What is “workforce development?”
The term “workforce development” emerged in the 1990s as a new paradigm for connecting occupational skills and vocational training services with the economy’s actual need for workers, with a focus on industry demand and jobs available in the community.
From an initial “Work First” orientation focused on moving people from welfare to work and self-sufficiency, with the attitude that “any job is a good job,” the field has adapted and grown to focus on a “Career Pathways” approach, centered on providing opportunities for growth and advancement in the workplace in combination with training and support services. The 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) has been instrumental in spurring on this shift, as it focused on closing the gap between the skills workers have and the skills employers want.
2. Who does the workforce development field serve? Who are the other stakeholders?
To improve their ability to place workers, workforce development intermediaries like America Works use a dual customer approach, in which we simultaneously work with clients to improve job search and employment skills, provide support services, and create connections to employment, while also working with employers and businesses across the country, forming relationships of trust and mutual support that allow us to place clients in jobs with these industry partners.
The workforce development field also includes community colleges, four-year universities, K-12 education providers, government and public sector agencies, labor unions, and nonprofits that offer supportive services like housing and food assistance to workers.
3. Where do we place Clients? What resources do we offer them?
Today, some of the highest growth industries include Healthcare and Social Services; Food Service, Retail, and Hospitality; Construction; Transportation/Logistics; Education; Maintenance and Security; and Technology. Many of our trainings focus on these industries, given their excellent long-term job prospects. Using the dual-customer approach described above, we have industry partnerships with businesses like Starbucks, Amazon, and CVS that provide workplace-specific training to our clients and in turn allow us to place clients in their open positions.
We also refer clients out to other educational opportunities and support services, including higher education and field-specific training programs, such as thirty-hour training for the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, accelerated associates’ degrees with CUNY ASAP, and financial counseling at NYC Financial Empowerment Centers in New York, among many other community partnerships and connections in the city and across the country. Immediately upon enrollment and intake, clients are also connected with resources for housing, food security, and family stability. Throughout their time in the program, clients are connected to other resources as their needs and goals become clear.
In our year-long research projects, we’re diving deeper into the issues that have not yet been solved in workforce development, studying topics that give us a window into other policy intersections, including how incarceration affects employment, how healthcare needs limit job opportunities, and how to help clients stay longer in job placements or find the right balance between flexibility and security at work.
Though we still don’t have all the answers, now we have better questions to ask.
Citations:
Schrock, Greg. 2014. “Connecting People and Place Prosperity: Workforce Development and Urban Planning in Scholarship and Practice.” Journal of Planning Literature 29 (3): 257–71.
Desire2Learn, The Future of Work and Learning Report, 2018.