Workforce Policy for the Future: Connecting Skills and Careers

• Date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X20924701
• Author: Robert Giloth
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Workforce Policy for the Future:

Connecting Skills and Careers

Robert Giloth

1

Keywords

workforce development, adult education, career pa thways, 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 unem-

ployment, and modest wage increases, it also

revealed troubling new realities—uneven ge o-

graphic recovery and losses, lower labor force

participation, stagnant wages, heig htened skill

requirements, community and labor market dis-

ruptions from new technologies and job struc-

tures, 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-termworkforce and education-related

policy challenges have become more serious

since the Great Recessionand 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 det riment

of vocationaltraining and integrated careerpath-

ways (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 juvenilejustice systems or homeless.Student

debt has exploded and college costs are increas-

ing while the relative amount of resources dedi-

cated to developing talent pipelines has

diminished (Carnevale et al. 2019).On the posi-

tive side of the ledger,there has been substantial

innovation in redesigning high sc hools, transi-

tion to college, guided pathways in college,

career pathways, employer engagement, work-

based learning, and youth and adult apprentice-

ships (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

1

Center for Economic Opportunity, The Annie E. Casey

Foundation, Baltimore, MD, USA

Corresponding Author:

Robert Giloth, Center for Economic Opportunity, The

Annie E. Casey Foundation, 701 St. Paul Street, Baltimore,

MD 21202, USA.

Email: bgiloth@aecf.org

State and Local GovernmentReview

2019, Vol. 51(4) 267-274

ªThe Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0160323X20924701

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