It’s Time for Leadership on Job Training

Throughout America, there is a boom happening, but it is not one we should be especially proud of. It is a boom in very low-wage work. A growing number of jobs do not pay enough to sustain a family. Paradoxically, there are employers—many of them—who will tell you that if they could hire skilled workers, those workers would be paid career-path family-sustaining wages. They explain that to compete in the world economy these skilled workers are essential but do not exist in the communities in which those employers are located. Rather than ignore opportunity, businesses consider relocating or attempt to obtain a sufficient number of work visas from Homeland Security to import the necessary skilled workforce from foreign countries. Employers face the loss of an opportune moment for growth, and the communities, the states, and the nation lose a chance for economic development.

There is a connection here that is not being made, an opportunity that is not being seized for businesses and workers. Promising strategies already exist to deliver the necessary training and skills to low-paid American workers. These strategies offer career paths and higher pay to the workers. Smart local and state governments will increasingly adopt these strategies in concert with their business communities. Instead of continuing its years-long disinvestment in job training, the federal government can prompt and support the use of these and similar strategies.

One leading strategy is to have a three-way partnership among a government funder/facilitator, a community-based training provider (such as a community college or a nongovernment organization that has the experience and capacity), and local employers who need specific types of skilled workers. These three groups work in conjunction to identify skills needed, develop programs to train a workforce, and ultimately find jobs for trainees. This basic system has worked very well in small pilots such as the Job Training and Economic Development Program in Illinois. The common sense is astonishing. So is the fact that this strategy is in such little supply around the country. It needs a modest amount of government funding, a keen focus on doing it right and not cutting corners, and leadership to convene the necessary players.

Another successful strategy is to establish career paths to higher-paying employment. Programs teach entry-level and basic skills and help people find such employment, but the programs then continue to offer workers opportunities to develop skills and credentials key to landing better jobs in an industry. The Joyce Foundation in Chicago coordinates in the Midwest a multi-state initiative, called Shifting Gears, to develop and promote programming to create various paths to credentials and careers, and there are successful programs in many other locations around the country. Once again what is needed is a relatively modest investment by the government, close attention to doing it right and not cutting corners, and leadership to convene the necessary players.

A strategy that has worked well at getting very hard-to-employ workers started in the workforce, and thus getting them started toward higher-paying and career-path jobs, is “Transitional Jobs.” This strategy meets the needs of three somewhat overlapping groups (among others) with high percentages of chronic unemployment: disconnected youth, people reentering communities after a time in prison, and very low-income single mothers.  The transitional jobs strategy puts the person into a subsidized wage-paying job. This employment is combined with case-managed social services designed to identify whatever the employment-blocking problems are and to develop a program to help the worker learn to cope with or remedy those problems. The strategy provides instant earnings while dealing with the highly individualized sets of barriers that cause chronic unemployment. See www.transitionaljobs.org. It, too, needs investment and increased scale, proper implementation (it can easily but catastrophically be confused with “workfare” type programs, which have never produced good results), and leadership.

The cause of improving jobs and securing higher pay also would be mightily served by reforming our core educational systems. There should be improvements in our high school curricula to prepare students for higher-paying jobs in the communities served by the schools. And now, more than ever, college ensures the fullest opportunity for success in the modern economy. College attendance should be facilitated and promoted with tuition assistance and childcare services.  In fact, given the nature of the modern economy, two years of postsecondary education should be added to the basic guarantee of a free public education. Again, there are ideas that work, and they need funding, attention to quality, and leadership.

There are several themes here. We need to combine economic development with workforce development, bringing employers into the conversation. We need to think about career paths. We should adopt specific proven strategies all along the employment and education continuum but conceive of them as parts of a larger whole that flows from entry-level to family-sustaining wages. We must have a helpful level of government funding and attention to quality.  And, as we enter an election year, perhaps above all we should be aware of the need for leadership that understands these issues and assigns them appropriate priority in public budgets and administration.