Workforce Development Insights

RECENT ARTICLES

From Accenture: With enterprise customers increasingly redirecting their IT budgets toward services and software, particularly software-as-a-service (SaaS), high tech companies must adopt a sharply focused, customer-centric strategy to remain competitive. Aligning business strategies with operational goals is not just beneficial but crucial for capturing a significant market share in a rapidly transforming industry. By synchronizing their strategies with market demands, high tech companies can not only address current needs but also lay the groundwork for future growth and success in a dynamic and evolving digital marketplace. Click here to read more.
From The Annie E. Casey Foundation: “Young adults are an integral part of America’s workforce, and employers play an important role in their success,” said Ranita Jain, a senior associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “Using direct input from employers and young adults, Child Trends has shared valuable recommendations for creating workplaces where young people can learn, grow and thrive.” Click here to read more.
From The Aspen Institute: Local workforce development ecosystems are complex and come in all shapes and sizes. Workforce professionals might be employed in community colleges, city, state, and local governments, industry associations, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and other community-based organizations. They work in a wide array of occupations and professions, each with varying wages, benefits, working conditions, job titles, and required skill sets. Turnover rates and advancement opportunities vary across organizations, with some professionals feeling the pressure to move from under resourced institutions to jobs in other parts of the system with better compensation. There are few studies of this workforce. Commissioning a local analysis of our own workforce needs and issues — as we encourage other industries to do — could serve as the basis for developing job quality improvement strategies locally that result in significant service improvements. Click here to read more.
From Brookings: Fiscal policy decreased U.S. GDP growth by 0.1 percentage point in the second quarter of 2024, the Hutchins Center Fiscal Impact Measure (FIM) shows. The FIM translates changes in taxes and spending at federal, state, and local levels into changes in aggregate demand, illustrating the effect of fiscal policy on real GDP growth. GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.0% in the second quarter of 2024, according to the government’s latest estimate. Click here to read more.
From Center for American Progress: Through locally tailored programming and community engagement, GEAR UP aims to help improve students’ high school outcomes, strengthen their postsecondary awareness, and increase their postsecondary enrollment. Because students of color are overrepresented in high-poverty, underresourced schools, supporting programs such as GEAR UP and looking to them as models for promoting college and career readiness can help ensure postsecondary education remains a pathway toward opportunity that is open to all, even with new barriers to racial diversity in higher education. Click here to read more.
From Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: That federal funding, known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), expires at the end of September. Instead of cutting revenue that could be used for public education at such a time — as about half the states are already doing — states should build on the progress that additional funding provided by raising revenue through progressive taxes and by keeping public funds in public schools. Investing in public education is good policy: Long-term investments can help achieve equitable outcomes for students from families with low incomes, and yield lifetime benefits, including higher wages, higher educational achievement, and reductions in adult poverty. Click here to read more.
From Economic Policy Institute: Over the last few decades, the secure, middle-class life previously promised by auto manufacturing jobs has come under threat. In the Great Recession, when automakers were facing financial difficulties, workers made significant concessions to save the industry. Once these corporations went back to making record profits, they did not restore workers’ wages and benefits. At the same time, as more of the industry has shifted to the South, policymakers’ emphasis on suppressing wages and hostility to unions—core to the Southern economic development model—has undermined job quality across the industry. Click here to read more.
From FedCommunities: Manufactured housing offers a uniquely affordable entry into homeownership. It’s an especially important type of for-sale housing while aspiring buyers can’t afford pricier site-built homes. Additional research to better understand manufactured home communities could inform policy and financing tools needed to support affordability. Click here to read more.
From the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta: A key component of the Atlanta Fed’s work is gaining a holistic understanding of economic conditions in the Southeast. Traditional, quantitative measures of economic health like the unemployment rate and consumer price index are a critical piece of this puzzle. However, we also know that aggregated data doesn’t always capture the full picture of what is happening on the ground. Without digging into the narrative behind the numbers, it can be difficult to tease out how particular segments of the economy are responding to changing conditions. It is sometimes through anecdotal data that we hear conditions are getting better or worse before such realities reveal themselves in the economic data. Click here to read more.
From Gallup Workplace Insights: Americans have been consistently more negative than positive about the economy’s trajectory for over three years, since the start of high inflation in 2021. But this month, the percentage of Americans saying the economy is “getting better” has improved seven percentage points to 31% — one of only three times since 2021 that optimism about the economy has exceeded 30%, the others being earlier this year. Meanwhile, 63% say the economy is “getting worse.” Click here to read more.
From the International Association of Workforce Professionals (IAWP): As workforce development professionals, we play a crucial role in helping job seekers succeed in their interviews. By teaching them how to master the “Tell me about yourself” question, we equip them with a powerful tool that can set the stage for a successful interview. This question is more than just an icebreaker; it’s an opportunity for job seekers to showcase their qualifications, connect their experiences to the role, and make a strong first impression. With our guidance, they can approach this question with confidence, ready to make a lasting impact on their interviewers. Click here to read more.
From Jobs for the Future: Passing legislation is an important step toward transforming education and workforce systems, but it’s still just a single step. State priorities and leadership must also advance the legislative goals if implementation of the legislation is to be impactful. It’s also paramount to have measures in place that give all potential stakeholders, including learners, opportunities provide input; ensure that programs of study and other learning experiences lead to high-quality credits and credentials; and require college- and career-readiness programs to operate in collaboration with all involved systems. Otherwise, policies won’t reach their full potential. Click here to read more.
From JPMorganChase: The business community must be ready to capitalize on the insatiable opportunities presented by AI. But it also must be ready to support local workforces so that they too can meet these challenges. At JPMorgan Chase, we’ve built out a local team of more than 2,000 AI/machine learning (ML) experts and data scientists to help us leverage the power of this technology. In every city we do business in, we seek to find ways to create sustainable economic impact and we see an incredible opportunity to leverage our expertise and experience in San Francisco, to help our public and private sector partners prepare the workforce alongside this incredible tech revolution. Click here to read more.
From Manpower: The current outlook for healthcare and life sciences offers a future of both unprecedented opportunity and uncertainty. Advancements in AI, genomics, and digital health technologies point toward a future of personalized medicine, preventive care, and more effective treatments. At the same time, a challenging global business environment increases the urgency for business transformation, human capital engagement, strategic acquisitions, and divestment. Click here to read more.
From McKinsey & Company: Indeed, an ever-shrinking number of retailers accounts for most of the value creation in the sector. This group consists almost entirely of retail giants, with revenue exceeding $50 billion each. What’s more, one in four retailers are now destroying value, up from one in six just 15 years ago. Click here to read more.
From the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE): Overall, reneges aren’t a significant issue among responding employers. Respondents reported that approximately 7% of their accepted job offers ended with a renege on the part of the candidate. However, a higher percentage of respondents also reported that their offers to students for internships ended with reneges (10%). Click here to read more.
From the National Association of Counties (NACO): A high income cannot crack the childcare crisis for new parents. Warren County, Ohio demonstrates that even moderate-income families struggle to find high-quality, accessible childcare. With costs of infant care soaring to $19,000 a year, parents are exiting the labor force to care for their children. Commissioner Shannon Jones recognizes that Warren County’s young workforce is vulnerable to this barrier. “There are life milestones. Everyone should be able to get married and have families, and childcare is now a hindrance for their ability to either pull up out of poverty or remain out of poverty,” Jones said. While the inaccessibility of childcare falls hardest on the backs of young parents, this problem reaches everyone once the consequences of those parents leaving the workforce start affecting the local economy. Click here to read more.
From the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB): WIOA is a critical tool that empowers local governments, workforce boards, and other vital local stakeholders to connect individuals with in-demand skills training and education needed by employers. A thoughtful reauthorization of WIOA—one that balances the needs of workers, learners, employers, and their communities—is critically important to our members who serve an integral function in the legislation’s implementation. Click here to read more.
From the National Conference of State Legislatures: Policymakers, early childhood advocacy groups and others in the sector have warned that a child care cliff might force providers to close or substantially raise their prices; both outcomes could further decrease the options available to families. States used their federal dollars in a variety of ways, and many states have responded to expiring federal funds by passing their own short- or long-term funding increases to support child care access. As a result, the effects of federal relief funds running out may vary by state. Click here to read more.
From the National League of Cities (NLC): Post-secondary students often struggle with food insecurity, lacking access to affordable food and supportive services. The nationally representative 2019-2020 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study found that almost 23 percent of students pursuing undergraduate degrees reported experiencing low or very low food security within the last 30 days. Another 12 percent of undergraduate students reported experiencing marginal food insecurity, meaning they have some anxiety about accessing adequate food and have occasionally faced food shortages. Together, this means that nearly half of all students working towards a degree are facing some level of food insecurity. For local leaders, addressing food insecurity on college campuses requires a comprehensive understanding of its root causes, which are often both complex and interrelated. Click here to read more.
From the National Fund for Workforce Solutions: Even as the pandemic subsided, labor shortages among essential workers like nurses, surgical technicians, and medical assistants persist. Healthcare remains one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy, employing over 20 million people, roughly 12.5% of the working population as of 2022. As the population ages, the demand for healthcare workers will continue to grow. However, the COVID crisis exacerbated tightness in the U.S. labor market, which experts believe will be with us for the foreseeable future. This is a wake-up call to the entire sector to rethink its approach to recruiting and retaining employees. Click here to read more.
From the National Skills Coalition: Increasing investments in support services is crucial for workers balancing parenthood, multiple jobs, and other responsibilities while pursuing career goals. A supportive workforce system must address not only training but also essential needs like food, childcare, and holistic coaching and navigation services. This strategy is vital for racial equity, benefiting Latino/a, Black, and other people of color who could benefit from access to quality job training and advancement opportunities. Click here to read more.
From Prosperity Now: “While 44 consecutive months of job growth is a remarkable milestone, it’s concerning that for the second month in a row, we’ve fallen short of expectations. This signals that businesses – especially small and minority-owned enterprises – are hesitant to invest and grow under the current high-interest rate environment,” said Calderon. “As we highlighted last month, it is time for the Federal Reserve to consider easing interest rates to make capital more accessible and affordable for people seeking to invest in their futures.” Click here to read more.

From the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM): In conjunction with other recent evidence, today’s report reinforces the growing narrative that the labor market has cooled significantly, said Justin Ladner, senior labor economist at SHRM. “To be clear, the U.S. labor market remains tight by historic standards, and job growth is still relatively strong overall,” he said. “However, monthly employment gains have fallen somewhat and are becoming more concentrated in specific sectors. Furthermore, wage growth has continued to moderate as expected, and the super-heated conditions of recent years have given way to conditions that much more closely resemble those that existed immediately before the pandemic.” Click here to read more.
From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Tax policy should be designed to minimize the negative impact on economic growth. Pro-growth tax policy doesn’t just grow the overall U.S. economy; it raises wages for American workers and improves standards of living. Maintaining and improving pro-growth tax policy also ensures that the U.S. is globally competitive, retaining and attracting businesses, jobs, investment, and innovation here at home. Click here to read more.
From Workforce Monitor: All around the world, there’s the four-day week movement and other policies that are being implemented in very, very creative ways by companies to encourage work-life balance. There’s one company that’s implemented a policy called “Take time to win time” to encourage employees to take their vacation time. The more vacation time they take, they get an entry into a drawing for each day they take, and the drawing wins them more vacation time. So instead of rewarding long work hours, they’re rewarding taking a break and having more balance. Click here to read more.
From Workday: According to the report from Payslip, “Global Payroll Survey Results: What Needs to Change,” 64% of payroll practitioners feel their payroll operations lack the agility, flexibility, and innovation required to support their organization. That’s why more governments are looking to an integrated cloud-based payroll system that can free up teams to focus on more strategic pursuits—helping shape organizational growth such as optimizing current labor costs and determining areas in which to fund additional staffing. To help guide governments to a new approach to payroll, we share five strategies that can better prepare them for modernization and transform payroll from an undervalued back-office function into a central element of a broader human capital management (HCM) strategy. Click here to read more.
From WorkingNation: Overall employment in construction and extraction jobs, for example, is expected to grow faster than average for all occupations through the 10-year period ending in 2033, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 663,500 openings are projected each year. Employers say they can’t find enough people to fill those roles. “If more women entered and stayed in construction, there could be enough workers to fill existing job openings,” according to U.S. Department of Commerce. Click here to read more.

From WorkRise: Substantial evidence supports the effectiveness of workforce development strategies that align training with labor market needs, establish long-term career pathways, incorporate opportunities for work-based learning, provide targeted supports to address barriers, and offer assistance with career navigation and job placement. Further research is needed to understand how to adapt effective models to serve the young people who are facing the most barriers, as well as how to scale approaches that have demonstrated impact to reach larger populations of young people. There are also opportunities to more effectively embed career-focused strategies in high schools and colleges while providing alternative pathways to careers. Future research could examine how to improve jobs and workplaces—whether through collaboration with employers or through public policies and programs—to align with the needs of young people and the goal of economic mobility. Click here to read more.

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DATA TOOLS

From Atlanta Regional Commission: Each week ARC, in partnership with Neighborhood Nexus, provides updated research and analytics through the 33^on blog. From a look at housing, rental rates, and cost of living to the job market and latest on wages, this blog is a one-stop portal to a treasure trove of local and regional data. Click here to learn more.

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 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. The Opportunity Occupations Monitor displays opportunity employment and its prevalence across labor markets. Opportunity employment is an estimate of the number and share of jobs accessible to workers without a bachelor’s degree that pays more than the national median wage. Click here to learn more.

From the Georgia Department of Labor: The Georgia Department of Labor provides access to a complete set of data tools for workforce developers to better understand the labor market conditions in Georgia. The portal also includes resources for job seekers and employers. Click here to learn more.

From Georgia Power: Georgia Power’s Community & Economic Development team maintains interactive tools to take a deeper dive into the data on target industries, the labor force, and more. Click here to learn more.

From the National Fund for Workforce Solutions: The National Fund for Workforce Solutions’ Workforce Equity Dashboard provides disaggregated data that uncovers racial gaps in workforce outcomes, identifies opportunities to advance racial equity across systems, and informs high-impact strategies to build a future where employers, workers, and communities prosper. This dashboard was developed in partnership with the National Equity Atlas. Click here to learn more.

From Neighborhood Nexus: Neighborhood Nexus, a data partner of ARC, developed Data Nexus, a powerful tool to find, visualize, analyze, and download community data including demographic, education, health, and economic indicators from state and national sources, all in one place. Click here to learn more.

From the Partnership for Southern Equity: The Metro Atlanta Racial Equity Atlas (MAREA) is designed to offer an immersive, story-centric experience that contextualizes personal narratives with engaging, interactive community data and historical background. This tool has been developed by the Partnership for Southern Equity, Neighborhood Nexus, and archi. 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 the Technical College System of Georgia: TCSG’s Data and Research provides access to the System Scorecard, enrollment data, and more. Click here to learn more.

From the University of Georgia, Carl Vinson Institute of Government (CVIOG): CVIOG has developed toolkits and other resources on a variety of workforce topics. Click here to learn more.

From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Right now, there are too many jobs without people to fill them. As a result, businesses can’t grow, compete, or thrive. The America Works Data Center captures trends on job openings, labor force participation, quit rates, and more. Click here to learn more.

From WorkSource Georgia: Through its portal, WorkSource Georgia provides access to labor market facts, area profiles, industry profiles, educational profiles, and occupational profiles. Click here to learn more.