In its November 4, 2024, WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, Washington Update section, the Conference of Mayors Workforce Development Council, of which KRA is a long-standing member, reprinted a set of papers—released in October by the Workforce Futures Initiative—that provide a comprehensive overview of what’s working in workforce development.
For example, the collaborative notes that sector-based training programs have largely proved successful but remain small, and that community colleges, which educate vastly more students, have work to do to achieve their full potential to prepare students for in-demand careers.
What’s Working? Perspectives on Key Issues in Workforce Development Programs and Practices includes 14 papers, presented in five sections that “explore ways to expand promising approaches, including modernizing labor market data systems, redesigning community college funding formulas, and providing more reliable funding for sector-based training.”
- Part I: Perspectives on Place-Based Policy: Strategies for Workforce and Economic Development
- Part II: Navigating the Future Of Work: Perspectives on Automation, AI, and Economic Prosperity
- Part III: Expanding Economic Opportunities Through Evidence-Based Sector Training
- Part IV: Government-Supported Job Training in the US: Approaches to Workforce Development Reform
- Part V: Innovations in Education, Policy, and Labor Market Intelligence
With 40+ years’ experience in nationwide community-, economic-, and workforce-development programs and practices, KRA considers this collection of papers to be the most research-based, thought-provoking assessment of our industry’s status—where we are and where we should be headed.