A Post COVID Economy Recommendations for a Fully Funded and Transformed Workforce System

This report presents a series of recommendations to adapt the U.S. workforce system to address the challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. Even before the onset of COVID-19, roughly 75 million Americans were unemployed, underemployed, or not working but not counted in official unemployment statistics. The pandemic has clearly made this problem even worse, given that many of the individuals who did have jobs—particularly low-paying positions—have now lost them as a result of the crisis.  Possibly most devastating is the fact that the workers who are suffering the greatest economic hardships as a result of the crisis are low-wage earners and individuals with no postsecondary credentials—many of whom are Black, Latinx, or from other underrepresented populations. These are the same workers who have been historically disenfranchised.  In today’s economy, this is a serious disconnect, because the majority of jobs in high demand require at least some postsecondary education and training. Before COVID-19, the United States faced severe shortages of workers with associate’s degrees and technical credentials. We expect this trend to continue as new ways of working sparked by technological advancements demand higher-level knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Opportunities for education and economic advancement have not been shared equitably in the United States, and it is critical to close gaps in skills, credentials, employment attainment, and retention associated with race, ethnicity, income, and immigration status. Without focused efforts to address inequality and promote equity in our postsecondary and workforce development efforts, these gaps will continue to grow.

The U.S. needs a workforce system that is agile, keeps up with the skill needs of in-demand employers, and provides real-time career navigation services for students, jobseekers, and workers. Such efforts will require a fundamental rethinking of our current system that incorporates programs authorized under WIOA, but also extends far beyond them. The days of siloed policy development for U.S. workforce, higher education, social safety net, and economic development systems must end. These systems must be considered and transformed as a whole so they can work together to form the critical workforce preparation ecosystem we need today and in the future.

(This report is 20 pages long.)

The researchers provided the following recommendations:

• Increase investments in America’s workforce at levels that support the economic needs of U.S. workers, and the skill needs of U.S. employers.
• Make systems changes to modernize the nation’s workforce development system and transform the delivery of education and training in ways that accelerate workers’ time in the classroom.
• Develop a robust career navigation system that helps students, parents, jobseekers, and workers make well-informed choices about education, career paths, and employment.
• Create a lifelong learning system that increases funding for skills development, transforms the structure and delivery of education and skills training, builds out and scales sector-focused and career pathways systems, and creates federal-state partnership grants for postsecondary education.
• Ensure that U.S. workers are protected in times of transition by enacting reforms in unemployment insurance that include expanded eligibility for benefits, and evidence-based reforms.
• Ensure the quality of education and training programs as the country experiences a significant increase in demand for short-term occupational skills training programs tied to in-demand employment.
• Encourage employer engagement in the design and delivery of occupationally focused programs, and in the training and education of their own frontline workers.
• Target programming to individuals facing barriers to education and employment to help them succeed in attaining the skills and credentials needed for in-demand, family-supporting careers.
• Increase investments in and programming for opportunity youth that creates strong bridges between education and employment, address the need for postsecondary education and training that is high quality and affordable, and offer paid work experiences.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2021
• Author(s): Gardner Clagett, M.; Maag, T.
• Funding Source: Jobs for the Future
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies