Strategies To Create a More Equitable Workforce
Introduction and summary
Americans face a host of challenges navigating their careers in the 21st century. Corporations increasingly eschew workforce investments that fostered economic stability in previous generations, failing to provide health and retirement benefits as well as on-the-job training. Meanwhile, global competition, app-based technology, and the potential for accelerated automation and the rise of artificial intelligence threaten workers’ ability to stay in a single field over the course of their careers. Yet women and people of color face the greatest obstacles navigating the labor market, as steep gender and racial pay gaps as well as occupational segregation persist, making it difficult for them to find good jobs.
Policymakers, workforce intermediaries, employers, and worker advocates continue to debate how to correct existing labor market disparities and ensure that 21st century American workers are able to reach the middle class, successfully navigate their careers, and balance work with other responsibilities.1Advocates across industries and ideological spectrums point to high-quality training and a nimble workforce investment system as essential components in ensuring that all workers across gender and racial lines are prepared for emerging jobs. Yet today’s public workforce system is ill-prepared to fill this role, and even in forward-looking conversations, the role of the workforce system is relegated to responding to the changing labor market rather than imagining a role for intermediaries in shaping the jobs of the future.
Policy proposals often lack details on how new investments in workforce development will differ from existing interventions that have failed to support equity or real advancement opportunities. Too often, job training programs put the onus on workers themselves to respond to the changing labor market and navigate the increasingly complex workforce system while ignoring the reality that the very training devoted to these fast-growing fields often results in low-paying jobs with poor working conditions. Continue reading.