Building the Workforce of the Future: An in depth, independent report on the first eighteen months…

“In November 2014, [the mayor of New York City] launched a sweeping new approach to workforce development in New York City” (p.3). “At the heart of the city’s Career Pathways strategy is a dual-client approach designed to connect employers to skilled workers and workers to in-demand skills. The city intends to achieve those outcomes by making considerable investments in cohesive and stackable training and basic education programs, building a more nuanced understanding of the career pathways that exist in growth industries, and developing the ability of providers to serve particularly disadvantaged populations such as immigrants, people with low literacy skills, displaced workers, and young adults. In addition, the framework calls for the workforce system to engage employers in improving the quality of entry-level jobs. Finally, Career Pathways encourages the city’s workforce agencies to coordinate their work in order to avoid duplicating effort and investment, and to leverage the capacities of workforce stakeholders like [City University of New York] (CUNY) and the Department of Education (DOE)” (p.13).

“[M]ore than a year and a half after the rollout, Career Pathways shows significant promise to reform and overhaul the way that the city funds, provides, and measures the success of skills-building programs” (p.3). The report seeks to answer questions such as: “[W]hat specifically has been accomplished so far, what challenges remain, and what additional steps should be taken in the months ahead by city officials, philanthropy, workforce providers, and employers to realize the ambitious vision set forth by Career Pathways?” (p.3).

“This report aims to provide an independent assessment of the progress made [one and a half years] since the launch of Career Pathways. Based on interviews with more than 30 workforce development experts, the study details where the administration’s new approach to workforce development has achieved success or taken important steps forward, where it has stalled, and what challenges have limited the new system’s effectiveness. The study also includes a series of recommendations to bolster Career Pathways” (p.3).

(Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

Full publication title: Building the Workforce of the Future: An in depth, independent report on the first eighteen months of Career Pathways, New York City’s sweeping new strategy for workforce development

The report finds that the city has built industry partnerships in six industries (healthcare, tech, retail, food service, manufacturing, and construction), invested in bridge programs that provide remedial training to workers who are skill-deficient, united its efforts with CUNY to align academic programs to market needs, begun issuing contracts for delivery of workforce and client services, and made efforts to increase system and policy coordination “by creating a mayoral-level office to coordinate the workforce system’s efforts” (p.22). The report also outlines challenges and recommendations. “The primary obstacles include the minimal funding…available to support the intensive services that Career Pathways requires and the lack of capacity among providers to deliver those services at a large enough scale. In addition, public funding does not…pay for the kind of collaboration among providers that would allow them to create seamless service paths for clients of the system. Finally, the city still has a lot to learn from the workforce development community in order to inform its own programming” (p.24). The authors recommend the following: • “Build skills employers seek o Implement career exploration curricula in all public middle and high schools” (p.29). o “Support efforts by CUNY to develop system-wide alternative credit policies that apply to all of its 25 campuses” (p.29). o “Ensure that the Industry Partnerships can be a resource to all parts of the workforce system” (p.29). • “Set standards for job quality o Create more incentives for businesses to treat their employees well” (p.30). o “Leverage existing relationships between workforce development providers and employers to address job quality” (p.30). o “Expand and modernize work supports” (p.30). • “Increase policy and system coordination o Secure permanent sources of new funding, especially from local sources” (p.30). o “Increase support for capacity building” (p.31). o “Create stronger incentives, guidance, and support for partnerships and referral networks” (p.31). o “Develop customized solutions for populations with specialized needs” (p.32). o “Give the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development more accountability over workforce programs and policies” (p.32). o “Create a participatory planning process for workforce development” (p.32). (Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2016
• Author(s): González-Rivera, Christian
• Organizational Author(s): Center for An Urban Future
• Funding Source: Funding source not identified
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies