- From Accenture: 78% of Executives believe their organizations will be able to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to address barriers to disability inclusion over the next three years, yet just 32% report that they have inclusive design principles in place to support the development of fair and unbiased AI solutions. Click here to read more.
- From The Annie E. Casey Foundation: Young people striving to get an education and develop careers often face challenges on the road to adulthood. This is especially true for youth of color, young people who have been involved in public systems and young parents. Supportive educational and career pathways enable youth and young adults to obtain a high school diploma or equivalency, earn industry-valued credentials and begin developing careers that align with their interests — all while accessing services and support that enable them to overcome the unique challenges they’re facing and meet basic needs. Click here to read more.
- From The Aspen Institute: Restaurant workers have been hit hard by COVID-19 and the associated upheaval. According to a National Restaurant Association survey, two-thirds of workers had lost their jobs by April 2020, just two months into the pandemic. As the advocacy organization One Fair Wage notes, the industry includes seven of the 10 lowest-paying jobs in the country, and its workers are three times likelier to live in poverty than the rest of the US workforce. Restaurant workers are among those with the least access to health care, or even the ability to take time off for vaccinations or post-jab side effects. And for the lucky workers who kept their jobs during the pandemic, the customers sometimes were rude. Click here to read more.
- From Brookings: With vaccination rates increasing and COVID-19 case rates declining, there is an urgency to get back to normal. The April 2021 employment report was a timely reminder that not everyone will experience the recovery from this crisis the same way – or quickly. The post-pandemic shortfall in employment was over 10 million jobs relative to where the labor market would be in absence of the recession. Click here to read more.
- From Chmura: Rising vaccination rates, falling case rates, and relaxing mask requirements are giving medical experts cautious optimism about a return to normalcy. While there is abundant caution about assigning a population percentage to achieve herd immunity, many experts agree about 80% of the population will need to be immune to the virus to reach herd immunity, either through vaccination or by previously contracting the virus. So when will we get there? Click here to read more.
- From Corporation for a Skilled Workforce: As the pandemic recedes, more than six million youth 16-24 are neither working nor in school. In particular, the unemployment rate for young people of color topped 45 percent during the pandemic. Research indicates that without targeted help, a large proportion of those opportunity youth struggle to succeed for the rest of their lives. Click here to read more.
- From Credential Engine: State policymakers are prioritizing high-quality, demand-driven career pathways to postsecondary credentials that lead to in-demand, high-wage jobs. The country’s economic recovery requires it and places a premium on knowledge and skills that meet industry needs. But to do it well, states need systems that reliably identify programs that actually help learners earn those credentials, attain in-demand skills, and lead to jobs that pay family-sustaining wages. In other words, we need transparent quality assurance embedded in these pathways and credential opportunities. Click here to read more.
- From Cushman & Wakefield: During the pandemic, more people moved than usual. Moves increased from approximately 1.8 million in the previous two years to 2.0 million in 2020 and gateway markets saw a larger number of people migrate. However, as people moved out of gateway markets and CBDs, businesses have not. Click here to read more.
- From Emsi: If the US plans to brace for the coming sansdemic, better brace now. Last year, deaths exceeded births in fully half of the US states. Deaths outnumbered births in just five states in 2019, but that number rose to a concerning 25 states in 2020 as COVID accelerated the ongoing trend of the decline of young people. Baby boomers are dying off faster than they are replaced. Click here to read more.
- From the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta: An eviction marks a crisis point of housing instability that ripples into nearly every facet of a person’s life and harms future chances of housing security. Struggling tenants, advocates, researchers, and policymakers were already familiar with the harms of eviction well before the COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread economic distress to renter households. With the added urgency of a global pandemic, the impacts of eviction mushroom and tighten the nexus between individual outcomes like an eviction and community-level harm. Click here to read more.
- From Gallup: Though many coronavirus restrictions have been lifted in recent weeks, workers have not flooded back to their workplaces. Currently, 45% of U.S. full-time workers are working remotely — essentially unchanged from 47% in April, but down slightly from earlier this year and 2020 when about half of workers were working remotely. Fifteen percent of all full-time workers who work for an employer are doing their jobs remotely now but would like to go back to their workplaces. This percentage has been fairly steady over the past year. Click here to read more.
- From Jobs for the Future: Competency-based education (CBE) offers a model for flexible, outcomes-focused learning that empowers learners and provides clear signals to employers. On May 5th, JFF hosted a conversation with education and workforce leaders to discuss the expanding role and potential of CBE in economic recovery, skills-based hiring, and supporting flexible learning and talent development pipelines. Click here to read more.
- From JPMorgan Chase Institute: The Local Commerce Data Series are a battery of measures which provide a place-based view of local spending. Based upon the credit and debit card transactions made by over 40 million de-identified credit and debit card users across 15 major U.S. metro areas, the series provides decision-makers a view into the local commerce activity happening in their cities. Click here to read more.
- From McKinsey & Company: COVID-19 changed how we live and work in ways that will alter our behavior long after the pandemic subsides. Companies moved rapidly to deploy digital and automation technologies, dramatically accelerating trends that were unfolding at a much slower pace before the crisis. Work went remote, shopping, entertainment, and even medicine went online, and businesses everywhere scrambled to deploy digital systems to accommodate the shifts. Click here to read more.
- From MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future: The American labor movement is facing a paradox. Private-sector unionization is at its lowest level in nearly a century. Yet, esteem for the labor movement is the highest it has been since the 1960s, and most Americans want to be in a union. To better understand this situation, this paper reviews how workers are achieving collective action and building the labor movement outside the traditional business union. Click here to read more.
- From the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE): The words diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have increasingly become the buzz words du jour, and rightfully so, as inequities, xenophobia, and the like unfortunately continue in our society. Within the realm of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice, there are many concepts to learn, topics to unpack, and feelings to process (which will all take time) if we are to truly move forward. What has gotten lost amidst discussions about authenticity and truly embracing diversity, however, is the importance of honoring people by their given names. Pronunciation of names is an important yet overlooked topic in the space of diversity and inclusion. Click here to read more.
- From the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB): President Biden released his FY 2022 budget request today, providing a more detailed look at the administration’s spending priorities for the coming year. The request includes an increase for WIOA programming, and an initial outline for the American Jobs Plans which will likely take shape as part of a wider infrastructure package, pending further Congressional action. As a reminder, the President’s request is usually the beginning of the appropriations process, so there is still a lot of additional action yet to come in the House and Senate as lawmakers consider this proposal and craft their own spending proposals. Click here to read more.
- From the National Conference of State Legislatures: In 1938, Congress passed landmark legislation codifying worker protections in America. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) created the framework governing workplaces today, restricting child labor, establishing a standardized workday and providing for overtime pay. The legislation also established a federal minimum wage, creating a guaranteed wage floor, irrespective of geographic location. In addition to the federal rate, the FLSA outlines wages for tipped workers, workers with disabilities, and students. The FLSA has been amended many times in its 83-year history, most commonly for the purpose of raising wages, or expanding worker coverage. Today’s FLSA covers an estimated 143 million workers. Click here to read more.
- From the National Fund for Workforce Solutions: An invisible virus, police violence and a racial reckoning, a highly divisive national election and its aftermath. We’ve all experienced a year or more of trauma. We can’t say that trauma is an experience of someone else less fortunate. Bottom line: the last 14 months have made trauma universal. Even the idea returning to “normal” can provoke feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear. The fact is, the effects of all this trauma show up in the workplace. In order for workers to succeed, the essential workers who have been showing up throughout the pandemic and the white collar workers who have been working (and may continue to work) from home, and those returning to an office, we need to address trauma. Click here to read more.
- From the National Skills Coalition: In April, President Biden put forward the American Jobs Plan (AJP) and American Families Plan (AFP). Together, the plans could drive recovery and address the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women and communities of color. The President included a proposed $100 billion for workforce development under AJP to help workers train for jobs it creates. Click here to read more.
- From Prosperity Now: The Biden administration’s proposed $2.65 trillion American Jobs Plan is a commitment of resources and investments to overcome structural economic inequity, driven by racial and gender discrimination and exclusion. It comes on the heels of the Jan. 21, 2020, Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities, which affirmed a whole-government “approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.” Click here to read more.
- From the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM): It is hardly news to report that the American workplace is not friendly towards older people. For as long as it has existed, in fact, our corporate culture has been less than welcoming towards people of a certain age. Even in today’s litigious climate, where many lawyers are happy to take a case in which a company appears to have illegally discriminated against a person based on a physical attribute, blatant (although hardly ever mentioned or acknowledged) ageism is present in many, if not most, corporations. (Winning an age-based case is difficult for a variety of reasons.) It’s important to note that while Big Business is moving slow to end ageism in the workplace, if it is moving at all, small businesses, which fuel much economic growth in the United States, are more willing to employ older, experienced people, at least in leadership positions. Click here to read more.
- From Southern Regional Education Board (SREB): Many districts and states are targeting summer break as the best opportunity to recover unfinished learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With the federal COVID relief funds, schools can offer summer learning programs as they never have before. This research snapshot provides a summary of the most recent and relevant research on effective summer learning programs to help providers design programs that will benefit students the most. Click here to read more.
- From Strada Education Network: The pandemic has led to a national crisis of widespread disruption to both work and education for millions of adults in the U.S., especially those from historically marginalized groups. Will these disrupted workers and learners pursue education and training in the coming months? Rates of enrollment and interest in education and training are down substantially compared to a year ago, while preferences for work-based and nontraditional learning options endure. In the months ahead, we must find novel and innovative ways to help these learners return to the education and training pathways to upward mobility and career advancement. Click here to read more.
- From WorkforceGPS: As the American Job Center system adapts to the demand in services for disadvantaged job seekers, workforce development professionals need proven approaches for effective service delivery and program design. This Workforce System Strategies announcement offers evidence on interventions designed to meet current needs. Read on for more evidence that you can use in your employment and training programs! Click here to read more.
- From Workforce Monitor: In several respects, America’s federal and local government, postsecondary education, and workforce development organizations have failed to connect young adults efficiently and equitably to meaningful careers and family-sustaining wages. According to one analysis that studied a group of millennials over a decade, involuntary youth disconnection from postsecondary education and the workforce too often rises with age. One percent of 18-year-olds, 5% of 20-year-olds, and 12% of 26-year-old millennials were reported to be disconnected from career-pathways and livable income. Further, poor education, labor and earning outcomes are disproportionately concentrated among youth of color. Click here to learn more.
- From WorkingNation: Among the many findings from the global pandemic is that many companies haven’t just survived but found ways to thrive during quarantines and restrictions. Remote and flexible working—especially for those juggling parenting, caregiving, and other responsibilities—tested limits of technology, communication, and continuity. Click here to read more.
Data Tools
- From the Atlanta Regional Commission: The Atlanta Region Eviction Tracker – a collaboration of ARC, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and Georgia Tech – is updated weekly, though Fulton County’s census tract level counts have been unavailable since September 2020 due to an omission of certain case details provided via the Fulton Magistrate Court public search site. Click here to learn more.
- From Atlanta Regional Commission: Each week ARC provides an updated research and analytics through the 33on blog. Click here to see data on impacts to low-income workers and people of color. Click here to see a zip code map of vulnerable jobs. Click here to see data on social distancing. Click here to see data on mobility changes. Click here to see data on mobility patterns by industry. Click here to see a compendium of other data.
- From Brookings: The COVID-19 Metro Recovery Watch is aimed at informing local and state recovery strategies from COVID-19’s historic economic impacts in ways that link near-term resilience to longer-term economic transformation, racial equity, and economic inclusion. Click here to review the Metro Recovery Index.
- From Brookings: Using data from hundreds of thousands of real job transitions, the Job Mobility and Smart Growth Toolkit shows how workers can advance through labor markets—featuring national and city-by-city data on wage levels, local labor demand, and job mobility rankings for 441 occupations, from retail salespeople to cooks to computer programmers. Click here to see the toolkit.
- From Chmura:The COVID-19 Vulnerability Index describes communities most economically at-risk based solely on how a region’s mix of industries is impacted by shutdowns. This information can inform policy decisions about where state and federal aid should be directed to provide maximum support for the broader economy and to protect our most economically vulnerable citizens. Click here to see the index.
- From Chmura: Knowing which occupations can be performed remotely—that is, by working from home—is valuable for understanding the future of labor force supply in the post-COVID economy. The Remote Work Index compares the mix of remote-work employment in the region versus the average in the nation. Click here to learn more.
- From Emsi: To better understand where and why COVID-19 has spread within the United States, Emsi has developed a Health Risk Index. This index accounts for the key factors that have given the virus a stronger foothold in some regions, while others have been largely spared. Click here to see the index. Click here for information on other COVID-19 data tools.
- From Emsi: Track job posting trends by month and compare to 2019 averages through the Job Postings Dashboard. You can also filter by region, industry, company, job, and skill. Click here to see the dashboard. Click here for information on other COVID-19 data tools.
- From the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity (CWEO): The Unemployment Claims Monitor displays data from the weekly and monthly unemployment claims reports from the U.S. Department of Labor. It is updated every Thursday. Users will find weekly and monthly data on claims and on who have filed for unemployment insurance, including special unemployment programs like Short-Time Compensation (or Workshare), Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees, Ex-Service Members, and Extended Benefits programs. Click here to learn more.
- From the National Conference of State Legislatures: The State Action on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Database includes up-to-date, real-time information about bills related to and responding to the pandemic that have been introduced in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Click here to access.
- From Neighborhood Nexus: Neighborhood Nexus, a data partner of ARC, has developed interactive maps that show the location of Georgia’s most vulnerable people – whether they are vulnerable medically or economically. Click here to learn more.
- From Prosperity Now: The Prosperity Now Scorecard is a comprehensive resource for data on household financial health, racial economic inequality and policy recommendations to help put everyone in our country on a path to prosperity. Click here to access.
- From Surgo Ventures: Surgo Ventures created the COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index to leverage the power of data to understand how and why communities are vulnerable, so we can develop solutions to help them. Below we map the vulnerability of US counties. Click here to see the index.
- From the University of Georgia, Carl Vinson Institute of Government (CVIOG): CVIOG has created a web page to access COVID-19 Economic Data through its Georgiadata.org portal. Click here to learn more.
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