Workforce Developments

Can job training work without job creation?

Yesterday's New York Times had an article that, on the face of it, might have looked like bad coverage for the workforce development field. The title captured the tone: Job retraining may fall short of high hopes. 

The reporter talked to several laid off workers who've had less than stellar success after job retraining programs. Some have retrained only to find no jobs in their new field. Some have retrained for new careers, only to be laid off from that one. Some find themselves working for significantly less earnings than in their previous jobs, or less than what they thought their new career would pay.

The article cites a recent study from DOL's Employment and Training Administration that looked at 160,000 participants who entered WIA programs in 12 states between mid-2003 to 2005. The study concludes, among other things, that "The marginal benefits of training may exceed $400 in earnings each quarter." 

For any of us working in the field, this isn't news at all. Older workers who've been laid off often find themselves slipping down closer to the bottom of any new career ladder they train for. What's more, good jobs with family wages and benefits have been disappearing from the American landscape in recent years. How many defined-benefit pension plans are still left out there?

Job training can't work without job creation. And it can't just be any jobs, but jobs that replace earnings in a meaningful way. This study and the light being shone on it by the NYT is an opportunity for us to ask some important questions:

• We're doing what we can to train people for new careers, but are the jobs out there?
• Whose responsibility is to to create those jobs?
• Do those jobs pay enough in earnings and benefits to live on? To support a family? 
• If they don't, should we train people for those jobs?

ARRA (aka Obama's stimulus plan) is designed to begin to create new jobs and save the ones we have, but it's a short-term measure. What long-term policies and investments are needed to create good jobs that will last?

Job training image source: Housing Works

Growing food and skilled workers

Windy City Harvest is a project of the Chicago Botanic Garden that teaches organic gardening and entrepreneurial skills to residents. Trainees learn how to grow healthy food that is then sold in local markets. In addition to learning sustainable urban agriculture techniques, participants learn the business side: planning, pricing, sales and marketing. 

The program combines six months of instruction that includes credits at City Colleges of Chicago with a three month paid internship. 

Windy City Harvest was highlighted at a recent Urban Agriculture conference in Chicago (more info here) where one of the topics was What Funding Streams Can Support Urban Agriculture, Green Jobs, And Workforce Development?

I wonder what the answer was. 

To learn more about the program, watch this video:

Click here if you can't see the embedded video.

Readers: if you know of other innovative programs that combine job training with urban agriculture, please tell me about them.

From the Work Station to Graduation on Twitter

I'm live-Twittering the From the Work Station to Graduation forum today.

Click here to read the proceedings as they happen.

The forum is sponsored by the Seattle King County Workforce Education Collaborative and Port Jobs.

Community colleges + community-based organizations = graduation

President Obama has called on our nation's already-overloaded community colleges to play a key role in preparing America's workforce for the coming economic recovery. To make that happen, community colleges must do more to help a larger number of students successfully complete the certificate and degree programs they enter.

Right now, too many working adults who enter a community college program drop out before they earn a credential. That wastes time and resources for students and colleges. We have to learn how to do better.

But our community colleges - along with public educational institutions across the country - are facing deep budget cuts due to the economic downturn.

Can community colleges do more with less?

With budgets that were tight before the downturn hit, it's unlikely. But colleges can seek out ways to bring in new resources to support their students. They can find low-cost ways to restructure their offerings to make them more accessible to working adults, who make up the largest share of their students and whose retraining will be crucial to the economic recovery.

Here's one simple example. Many working adult students have young children. Without reliable childcare, they often can't finish their studies. Some community colleges offer low-cost childcare while students are in class. If a college doesn't have the budget to provide that childcare, it could seek out a partnership with a community-based organization (CBO) that can.

Take that a step further: If the CBO is housed in a building or center convenient for a community with high needs for education and training, the college could explore offering courses at the CBO's location.

Community colleges also can look to CBOs to provide counseling, case management or mentoring to help students stick with their studies when times get tough. They can help connect students to other resources in the community to help meet specific needs.

Let's not leave employers out of the partnership equation. Imagine earning a professional credential in college courses provided at your work site in the evenings, on weekends or even during paid work hours. Several employers located in the same geographic area with similar skilled labor needs could partner with a college to make that training available. After all, as employers cut back on the number of employees, it's likely that they will keep those who have a wider range of skills.

You get the idea: this isn't rocket science. Perhaps you're already thinking of your own ideas for innovative partnerships that can make community college more accessible and complete-able for working adults.

Airport University, which was founded by Port Jobs, is one example. It brings together two community colleges (South Seattle Community College and Highline Community College), employers at Sea-Tac Airport, the Port of Seattle and several community-based organizations.

Airport University offers onsite college classes to the 20,000 workers who work for the 100+ companies located at Sea-Tac International Airport. Through this partnership, airport employees can take credit-bearing classes at their worksite - the airport. This model has been adapted at Denver International Airport and at Baltimore- Washington International Airport.

We think that other local communities could easily adapt this model at airports, shopping malls, business parks, and other worksites where large numbers of companies and employees are located.

If you know of other good examples of community partnerships connected with local community colleges, please let me know in the comments below.

These are difficult economic times, but the difficulties create opportunities for colleges, CBOs, workforce development agencies, foundations and employers to re-think how we work together to maintain a vibrant, skilled labor force. As funding and budgets are cut, we should be very careful about how we deploy the resources we do have, and make sure we're getting the very best outcomes for the work we do. That may mean working with partners with whom we've never worked before, and taking on responsibilities we've never considered tackling.

No question, it will be a challenge. But these tough times demand it.

Guest blogger Susan Crane is Executive Director of Port Jobs a Seattle, WA-based action tank. Click below to read her previous posts:

Tuesday: Making community college work for working adults
Wednesday: The role of community colleges in the coming economic recovery 
Thursday: Community college priorities in tough economic times

Community college priorities in tough economic times

In these tough economic times, publicly funded institutions are getting hit hard. At community and technical colleges across the country, budgets are being slashed, while tuition and fees are being raised. Faculty and staff salaries are being frozen, summer school courses shut down, and grants to students are also being cut.

But these cuts in the bad times land on top of funding cuts took place in the good times. In earlier years, colleges managed by cutting back on "ancillary" services like academic advising, counseling or job placement, and by replacing full-time faculty with cheaper part-time adjuncts.

As a result, community college students have less support than ever to help them make smart decisions about career goals and classes.

Without good information and guidance, students may choose careers with little labor demand or limited advancement opportunity . They can find themselves taking classes that don't help them achieve their goals. Instructors rushing from one campus to the next may not have the time to take personal interest and help a student who's falling behind. Faculty and staff who don't know individual students well can't help them connect to good jobs.

It's hard enough to navigate college if you're well prepared for it. Many of the people community colleges serve are not. Some 39% of them nationwide are the first in their family to go to college. Many arrive needing remedial education.

As I wrote about on Tuesday and Wednesday, community college training will be one key to the economic recovery, but for that to work, we have to help more students complete their certificate and degree programs. Right now, far too many of them drop out along the way.

Dr. James Rosenbaum - keynote speaker at the Seattle King County Workforce Education Collaborative's forum tomorrow on improving student success at community colleges - has done extensive research on how to turn community college access into college success. Nationally, we've done well at the first. Now we need to turn to doing a better job of the latter.

In these economic times, and with Recovery Act money about to generate a burst of new labor demand, helping students complete their degrees faster is more important than ever. As policymakers and community college leaders make their next round of cuts, here are a few principles I recommend they keep in mind:

• Increasing degree completion rates for community college students is as important as getting them in the door.
• Counseling, advisement and supportive services that help students complete their studies can have a significant positive impact on completion rates.
• Job placement is always central to the community college mission. Today, it is an imperative. 
• When community colleges don't have the resources to provide additional services, partnerships with local employers, nonprofits and community-based organizations can fill gaps and help students complete their degree programs.

For more on that last point, tune in tomorrow.

Guest blogging this week is Susan Crane, Executive Director of Port Jobs in Seattle, WA. You can read her previous posts here and here.

The role of community colleges in the coming economic recovery

There are nearly 1,200 community and technical colleges across the U.S. with some 11.7 million students. By design, community colleges provide education for all who want or need it. 

Community colleges are where Americans go to

• Get their first two years of a four-year college education 
• Save money on a four-year college education
• Learn a new trade or job skill
• Learn to speak English 
• Get adult basic education in reading and math

Or some combination of all of the above. 

If you don't work with community colleges, you may be surprised to find out who their students are.  According to the American Association of Community Colleges, the average age of a community college student is 29 years old, and 13% of them are over 40. 17% are single parents. 

What's more, most community college students are also workers. Among full-time students, 27% are employed full time and about half are employed part-time. Among part-time students, half are employed full time and a third are employed part time.

With so many students working toward so many different goals with so much else going on in their lives, it's no surprise that a few students might fall through the cracks. As I wrote yesterday, the problem is that far too many of them do. 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is likely to add to the community colleges rolls. Economist Mark Zandi of Moodys.com has projected that the stimulus bill is likely to add or save 4 million jobs across the U.S., many of them in fields where community colleges do much of the training, like construction, manufacturing and retail trade.

We can also expect investments in green industries – a major part of the Obama administration's economic recovery plan – to add to training demands for community colleges. Research shows that many of the green jobs created in the energy efficiency, wind power and biofuels industries will be in construction, manufacturing and warehousing. Again, fields where community and technical colleges do most of the training.

If the projections are right, labor demand will outstrip supply. Many Americans who've been working in other industries will need to be retrained in order to take advantage of those jobs. Many of them have families and will need help to make sure they complete their training programs. 

Community and technical colleges, private career schools, employers, workforce development agencies, community-based organizations and workforce intermediaries must work together to develop a seamless training system that allows workers to get training

• In more convenient locations;
• At times that allow students to continue working while going to school;
• With supports for child care and transportation; and 
• That is combined with basic language and math skills training so that a wider range of students can take advantage of these opportunities.

This isn't just an economic downturn. We’re going through a major industrial restructuring in the U.S. Large corporations and entire industries are disappearing. New ones will emerge, and we must begin to prepare tomorrow's workforce today. Improving completion rates at community colleges will be one important piece of the puzzle.

Guest blogging this week is Susan Crane, Executive Director of Port Jobs in Seattle, WA. Port Jobs is not-for-profit action tank that develops practical programs and supports public policies that increase access to living wage jobs, fostering a more vibrant and equitable economy for residents of and businesses in Seattle and King County.

Making community college work for working adults

Guest blogging this week is Susan Crane, Executive Director of Port Jobs in Seattle, WA. Port Jobs is not-for-profit action tank that develops practical programs and supports public policies that increase access to living wage jobs, fostering a more vibrant and equitable economy for residents of and businesses in Seattle and King County. 

In his first address to Congress earlier this year, President Barack Obama rocked the workforce development world when he said, "Tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training."

If you have to ask what's so groundbreaking about that, you probably don't work in workforce development. 

For one thing, he said the words "career training." President Obama was saying better jobs skills for Americans will be a key factor in turning from economic downturn into recovery.

For another thing, he didn't say "get a four-year college degree." Most elected officials seem to think a four-year college education is the only pathway to success for individuals and for the economy at large. By talking about one year or more of training or education, President Obama was telling the country that shorter degrees and certificates for jobs like plumber, paralegal or licensed practical nurse are just as important.

In workforce development, we've known that for a long time. Studies show that in my state, Washington, a student who gets at least some college education will earn $222,000 more over a lifetime than a student who only graduates from high school.  If that person completes an associate's degree, she'll learn $323,000 more. 

Research also shows that both in Washington and nationally, "middle-skill" jobs that require more than a high school education but less than a college degree will make up the largest share of job openings from now until 2014. That's 49% of all job openings in Washington state and 45% of all job openings across the U.S.

But here's the dilemma. To get the kind of career and technical training President Obama was talking about, many Americans will turn to their local community colleges. This is where many people get training to become an aircraft mechanic, truck driver or computer technician.

Are our community colleges prepared to ensure that the students who enter these training programs complete their degrees? Many of those will be working adults with families. Many of them will arrive with limited previous education, and may lack basic reading, math or language skills. Research in our state shows that some 60% of older first-time students age 25-60 drop out of college without ever earning a certificate or degree.

If we are to rebuild our economy, we have to do a better job of making sure those students succeed.

This Friday, Port Jobs will host an event sponsored by the Seattle King County Workforce Education Collaborative, bringing together leaders from our community and technical colleges, private career schools, foundations, government agencies, community-based organizations and workforce development agencies to discuss how we can do just that. From the Work Station to Graduation will discuss best practices and emerging new paths to college success for working adults.

This week I'll be writing more about these issues. Tomorrow I'll write about how the jobs that will be created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will fit into this larger picture. On Thursday I'll write about budget cuts at the community colleges and how they could affect student success. On Friday I'll write about the role that community-based organizations and workforce intermediaries like Port Jobs can play in helping working adults succeed in school.

DOL rules for green jobs training grants

The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration (DOLETA) has just issued guidance on how it plans to use Recovery Act (ARRA) funds to make grants for green jobs training programs.

It's not a small chunk of change. Out of $750 million in the Recovery Act set aside for competitive grants for worker training and placement in high growth and emerging industries $500 million will be granted to projects preparing workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Training and Employment Notice (TEN) 44-08, as the guidance document is known, is available here. Info about all DOL grants is here. DOLETA's page on how it's using Recovery Act funds is here.  

DOLETA is expecting to make grants in five major areas:

State labor market information improvement grants. That means we get to do some background research before jumping into programs.

Energy training partnership grants. Looks like these are primarily for labor-management organizations or partnerships that include them. Some of these will be set aside for areas heavily dependent on the auto industry.

Pathways out of poverty grants. Targeting low income adults and youth, eligible parties will be community- and faith-based organizations or partnerships that include them.

State sector training grants. Sector initiatives hit the big time! Some of these funds will also be set aside for auto-dependent areas.

Green capacity building grants. Designed to build the capacity of current DOL grantees to "prepare targeted populations for employment in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors."

DOLETA expects to issue solicitations for grant proposals in June 2009 with application closing dates in the summer. So read up and get ready now.

Promoting a green recovery: Sec Solis talks new Dept of Labor priorities

As President Obama released his 2010 budget (news coverage here) last Thursday, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis appeared online in a pre-recorded video to give an overview of the part her department will oversee. Then she opened it up for questions that she answered in a live text chat online. After the first hour, DOL staff took over answering questions.

You can watch the video and read all the questions and answers here. Staff reports they will continue answering questions over the next few days.

I submitted a question during the live chat via Twitter, and am looking forward to reading their answer: Does DOL have plans to incorporate social media into programs & svsc, or fund grantees for that?

A few highlights from the live and ongoing chat:

On DOL's new priorities:

My priorities for the Department's FY 2010 budget include promoting a "green" recovery, beginning to restore the capacity of our worker protection programs to vigorously carry out their mission, ensuring that our programs are transparent and accountable, and promoting diversity and stakeholder inclusion in every aspect of the Department.

On unemployment:

While the Obama Administration's efforts are beginning to turn the economy around, millions of Americans, who are willing to work but cannot find a job, are being helped by the current Federal unemployment benefit extension. As we get closer to the end of the year, when the current program is scheduled to expire, the Administration will be taking a close look at economic conditions and the continued need for benefits.

On apprenticeship:

The Department is actively working on a comprehensive set of Solicitation for Grant Award which will, amongst other policy goals, encourage greater partnerships with and promotion of Registered Apprenticeship programs. Also in our ARRA Policy Guidance, we are encouraging the publicly funded workforce system to more actively reach out to Registered Apprenticeship programs, including labor management organizations.

Finally, in the past year, ETA has provided over $10 million in discretionary resources to support and promote Registered Apprenticeship. $6.5 million was made available to national organizations to incorporate elements of the revised regulatory framework governing the National Apprenticeship System. $2.5 million was made available to State Apprenticeship Agencies to assist in their efforts to modernize their Apprenticeship systems. Finally, technical assistance resources were provided for a series of Action Clinics around the country to promote greater collaboration with Registered Apprenticeship.

On the Career Pathways/Community College program:

This program was not cut. The 2009 budget included $125 million for Community-Based Job Training Grants. The 2010 budget renames and refocuses that program as Career Pathways Innovation Fund and increases funding to $135 million. The new program will focus on developing career pathways in community colleges for high-growth careers in partnership with workforce investment boards, faith-based groups and other community groups.

On Workforce Investment Act reauthorization:

We have received numerous letters identifying issues relevant to reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act, and we are appreciative of your interest and input. The Department looks forward to working with Congress and stakeholders as legislation takes shape. President Obama has called on Congress to work with him to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act, and the Department's FY 2010 Congressional Budget Request continues to support efforts to improve the effectiveness of the workforce system. The Administration is conducting a comprehensive review of federal job training programs to assess their effectiveness, which will inform the Administration's proposal for an improved workforce system.

Labor Secretary Solis live and unplugged - TODAY

Secretary Solis will appear live on the web today to talk about the fiscal 2010 budget.

They're taking questions now - you can send them via email, phone or Twitter. Here's how.

The live video webcast will be from 1:30 - 2:30 p.m. ET. Click here to watch.

UPDATE: The webcast is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m.

Jobs projections in your city and state: interactive map

USAToday.com has a cool interactive map where you can click to look at quarterly jobs past and future for states and cities across the country, from 2005 until about mid-2012.

Er, the interactivity is great. The data it shows isn't all that cool.

I'll randomly pick a city from the middle of the list: They're projecting a 2.8% drop in jobs in Lawrence, Kansas, for 2009. Jobs numbers will continue to fall until about mid-2010, when the numbers will start to rise.

Of the cities covered, job losses are expected to be greatest in Detroit, MI, Bradenton, FL, Jackson, MI, and Elkhart, IN, all of which are expected to see greater than 8% drops in 2009. However, they're projecting a turnaround to an increase in jobs in all of those cities by the third or fourth quarter of 2010.

The map covers 384 metro areas from Abilene, TX, to Yuma, AZ, as well as each state and the District of Columbia.

It shows absolute numbers of jobs, and shows percentage change - increases and decreases over time.

You can look at the data for all jobs in your selected geographic region, or specific categories like Construction, Manufacturing, Retail Trade and Transportation.

The forecast was created by Moody's Economy, based on the the DOL Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey.

Thanks to Tricia at Worksystems for sharing the link!

How to strengthen One-Stop services: recommendations from Brookings

As unemployment officially hits 8.5 percent across the country - with higher numbers in many states - the nation's workforce development system is more important than ever. Our 1,600+ One-Stop Career Centers are serving more people than ever - 15 million people per year and rising.

How can we improve the services they provide and help people get back to work sooner?

Economist Louis S. Jacobson of the nonprofit research firm CNA says we can improve the One-Stops by doing two things:

• Improve accountability systems so that core services aren't undervalued, and
• Double funding for the One-Stops from $4 billion to $8 billion annually.

He calculates that the return on investment for these two changes would be $3.90 in benefits for every $1 spent. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Jacobsen's findings are presented in a paper at the Brookings Institute's Hamilton Project. You can download and read the full paper or a shorter policy brief.

There's lots of good info in there. For example, here are some startling stats:

Since 1990, funding for One-Stops has fallen by 33 percent, while the labor force has grown by 23 percent and the probability of job loss has increased by 33 percent.

Jacobson argues that some of the greatest benefits would come from increasing core services such as job search assistance and job development, then tracking outcomes from those efforts. Under Workforce Investment Act rules, most One-Stops only track outcomes for clients receiving intensive services, not those receiving core services. Jacobson thinks this is a mistake.

He also argues that training programs could be improved by providing more counseling for clients to ensure that they're placed in the right training programs. Too many people are shuffled into training programs without adequate screening, preparation or support.

This reminds me of an interview with a doctor I heard recently who said that he is most effective when he takes the time to sit with patients and listen to them, explain things to them, then plan a course of treatment that best meets their needs. But he is reimbursed more for running expensive tests. Perverse incentives, indeed.

All the activities Jacobson recommends would require more staff time, but he crunches the numbers to show how those investments would pay off, both for taxpayers and for job seekers. What's more, they would allow the One-Stops to serve an additional 5.6 million Americans each year.

What do you think? Would these changes help your One-Stop provide better services? Do you have other ideas for improving the One-Stops?

New legislation to make sector initiatives part of the economic recovery

The SECTORS Act is back. With the economy in such dire shape and so many people out of work, and with ARRA stimulus investments on the way, I hope it gets more traction this time around.

According to this morning's announcement from The Workforce Alliance - who's been working hard on this legislation along with other workforce development experts -

The legislation would support "sector" or "industry partnerships," which allow businesses, unions, educators, and the public workforce system to develop and implement plans that help workers train for and advance in high-demand and emerging industries.

Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Patty Murray (D-WA) announced yesterday that they will reintroduce the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success (SECTORS) Act. Over in the House, Congressmen Dave Loebsack (D-IA) and Todd Platts (R-PA) are introducing companion legislation.

TWA's announcement goes on to point out that

Industry partnerships are a proven strategy utilized for years in many states and communities but has never received congressionally authorized funding. These partnerships have successfully connected local residents to training for jobs in industries with skilled worker shortages.

I can remember a day when sector strategies (click here for a definition of the term) weren't as well known and certainly weren't as widespread in the workforce development world as they are today. To learn more about early development of the field and what was learned, check out this recent report from Public/Private Ventures: Targeting Industries, Training Workers and Improving Opportunities: The Final Report from the Sectoral Employment Initiative. More on P/PV's Sector Employment Initiatives is also available here.

Recovery Act "the best thing that has ever happened to the nation’s workforce development system"

So says Lewis Soares, Director of the Economic Mobility Program at the Center for American Progress.

The current economic crisis has created an opportunity for those of us who work in the nation's "sprawling, decentralized workforce system," says Soares. The details of the ARRA (aka the Stimulus Act) and guidance from the Dept of Labor have set priorities that allow us the freedom to experiment and innovate.

Further, the president’s historic goal of moving every American toward at least one year of postsecondary education creates a leadership imperative for taking our workforce development systems to a new level of performance.

From here, it's up to us in the 650 workforce boards and 1,600 one-stop career centers around the country - to which I'd add all the nonprofit programs, community-based organizations and foundations in the wider workforce system - to do two things:

1. Innovate and make it work for American workers; and
   
2. Collect the data to demonstrate what works.

Soares sees an opportunity here not just to help Americans get back to work, but to transform the workforce system:

Data-driven management accompanied by broad national goals for postsecondary credentials and local autonomy for implementation will allow the federal government to break out of its traditional role as a rulemaker and program funder to be a catalyst for workforce systems change. This would mean allowing real-world practice to inform the debate on WIA reauthorization and might even suggest allowing ARRA implementation to have time to scale up and produce results in the workforce system and build new legislation from what we know works.

To read the full article, click here.

What are your thoughts on the ARRA? Do you see these opportunities? What kind of program innovations are you developing right now?

Photo credit: nj.com.

A shovel-ready maintenance worker shortage

As older workers retire and younger workers opt out of maintenance jobs, how will we keep schools, factories, hospitals and other facilities running? Some experts say there just won't be enough trained maintenance workers in the U.S. to meet labor demand.

If you're thinking somebody should write a song about the looming maintenance worker shortage and put it on YouTube, I have a video for you: 

The video ends with two great questions:

What if we train them and they leave?
What if you don't and they stay?

As this song asks, How safe does that make you feel?

If you don't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.

A map of green jobs in America

Where are the green jobs everybody's talking about? What are those jobs? What companies have them?

A recent report by researchers at Duke University called Manufacturing Climate Solutions (summary here) has set out to answer those questions. The report was sponsored in part by the Environmental Defense Fund, which has put together an impressive website that includes maps of specific companies where green jobs are being created in twelve states. I hope more states are coming soon.

The study started by focusing on five carbon-reducing technologies and taking a close look at jobs in in their value chain and in the supply chain where parts and components are made for those technologies.

Many of those parts are manufactured in the U.S., which means they found lots of green jobs in manufacturing. The first five technologies they studied are LED lighting, high-performance windows, auxiliary power units for long-haul trucks, concentrating solar power, and Super Soil Systems (a new method for treating hog wastes). New industries are being added to the study and released periodically.

The information in this report complements the green jobs framework issued last week by the Department of Labor about how the workforce system should spend funds to develop green jobs and prepare people for them.

Here's a detail from EDF's map of renewable energy (green) and energy efficiency (blue) companies in the Denver, Colorado, area:

To get into the interactive map click here. For more information on the study and the green jobs they found, visit the website or read the report. The report was sponsored by Environmental Defense Fund, the Building and Construction Trades Department (AFL-CIO), Industrial Union Council (AFL-CIO), International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, and United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters.

The study concludes that the states likely to benefit most from green jobs include Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.

Looks like those of us in workforce development are going to be learning a lot more about low-carbon technologies and supply chains as we develop new programs and jobs in the green economy era. 

Department of Labor issues draft framework for green jobs

The DOL's Employment and Training Administration (DOLETA) has issued its framework for developing green jobs within the nation's workforce system. The framework lines up their expectations from the policy level down to roles and specific actions at the operational level. As DOLETA describes it

The framework identifies the foundational and operational elements required for serving the needs of the workforce system and its customers. It is designed to promote the development of new and existing green jobs, and hasten widespread employment in green careers across several industry sectors.

It's still marked "draft," so there may be changes. You can download the document here, or read it below.

DOL's Green Job Framework - DocStoc.com

The stimulus plan: how workforce dollars will be spent

The federal government must have funds from the stimulus bill (known as the Recovery Act, or by its acronym ARRA) allotted by March 19, 2009. That's 30 days after it was signed into law, and less than two weeks from today.

Agencies that will spend those funds are beginning to set up policies, principles, rules and regulations for how they will invest stimulus money. The U.S. Department of Labor has just released the following Training and Employment Notice (30-08) explaining the ground rules for how state and local workforce agencies should use the funds. The full text of the notice is below, but here are the key principles:

• Transparency and accountability are expected at all levels, including frequent communication with the American public;
• Funds will be expedited, and expenditures will be made concurrently with regular formula funds;
• Emphasis should be on training and on innovative and invigorated service delivery strategies;
• The emphasis should also be on services for hard-to-serve populations and needs-related payments. 

DOL Implementation Strategy for the Stimulus

Other agencies are setting policies and making Recovery Act information available at the state and local level. These include

• Worksystems, Inc. in Portland, Oregon has created a set of principles to guide their use of funds
• U.S. Conference of Mayors recently held a series of workshops offering advice and guidance on how to use the funds for summer youth employment programs - read notes from the workshops here, courtesy of Michele Martin 
• The California Workforce Association has created a wiki full of ARRA-related resources 
• The White House and several states have set up websites to explain and track how they spend stimulus funds 

If you know of other ARRA-related principles, policies and guidelines from other agencies, please send me links.

Obama urges Americans to get career training

From President Obama's address to Congress last night:

It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work.  But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it.  And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.  This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship.  But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.

Because rebuilding our economy requires a smarter, better skilled workforce.

I almost did a double-take when I heard those words. He didn't just promise to provide it, but called on all Americans to seek out training and education so each of us can play a role in that rebuilding. Which is what workforce development is all about. Welcome to our world!

Read the full speech or watch it here. 

We have a Labor Secretary

Hilda Solis was confirmed earlier today as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Senate vote was 80-17.

She's the 25th person to hold the position, the seventh woman in the job and the first Latino. For a list of past Labor Secretaries, click here.

For earlier coverage of the rocky road to filling the job, click here and here. You'll find her official biography here.

To get a sense of the new Secretary's personal style and priorities, here's a video of Representative Solis talking about green jobs and optimism on the floor of the House last summer:

Now that we have a Labor Secretary in place, let's get to work rebuilding our economy, one job at a time.