Policy Recommendations

In Indiana and Washington, among other states, policymakers have chosen to adopt multifaceted strategies for supporting workforce training. The success of participant-focused, provider-focused, and employer-focused skills funds all ultimately depend on states’ willingness to make strong commitments to educational rigor and job quality. However, these case studies also show that implementing multiple workforce funding programs, targeted at different stakeholders, permits states to serve different regional economies, educational partners, and student and employer communities.

These case studies draw out six recommendations for states interested in creating or expanding policies to support workforce training programs:

• Establish an employer-focused skills training fund. Employer-focused initiatives allow businesses to provide training that works for them, reducing the likelihood that workforce training will not result in employment for trainees. These policies should be available for retraining incumbent workers as well as for new hires. Policies should also support accessibility for small businesses. In Washington, for example, employers with less than $500,000 in gross annual income must adhere to all Job Skills Program guidelines but are not required to match public funding. Where possible, employer-focused initiatives should mirror the sector strategies model with collaborative arrangements that pool demand for shared skills needs from multiple employers. Employer-focused initiatives funded by payroll taxes should be implemented if possible, as they create a clearer financial incentive for businesses to develop training.
• Implement a participant-focused or provider-focused training incentive—or both. Alongside employer-focused training policies, states should implement policies that reduce career training costs for participants and build institutional capacity among training providers. Provider-focused policies should support the development of both credit and non-credit programs that respond to the needs of local employers and reliably connect students to job opportunities. Participant-focused state policies should cover tuition and living expenses during training so that learners can participate and succeed in rigorous, job-relevant workforce programs, which are likely to take more than just a few weeks to complete. Participant-focused policies should not be off-limits to learners with a prior degree. As shown by Indiana’s decision to allow bachelor’s degree holders to access Workforce Ready Grants through December 2020,¹ degree holders may also need and benefit from additional workforce training. By using participant- or provider-focused supports alongside employer-focused policies, states can ensure that job seekers in different situations and at different stages of life will find what they need to take their next career step.
• Require training programs to demonstrate immediate economic opportunity. Participant- and provider-focused supports may encounter pitfalls when training is not connected to immediate, adequate, and durable economic demand. For these initiatives, states and local institutions should regularly establish and update priority occupations—rather than broader priority sectors—using recent labor market information drawn from occupational wage data, as Washington State has begun to do.² Employer-focused policies should feature wage requirements to ensure that only in-demand jobs with committed businesses are eligible for funding. In Michigan’s New Jobs Training Program, for example, only jobs that pay at least 175 percent of the state’s minimum wage (i.e., $16.54 per hour in 2019) are eligible for training contracts. Required retention periods for program completers, as seen in California’s Employment Training Panel funds and Indiana’s Employer Training Grants, can provide important additional worker protection.
• Establish articulation processes. Short workforce training programs may play an important role for many Americans in the economic recovery from the pandemic recession. However, such programs on their own are unlikely to produce satisfactory earnings over the course of a learner’s career. Non-credit training and industry credentials should be made eligible for college credit for prior learning; credit-bearing certificates should stack into degree programs; and work-based learning should articulate into Registered Apprenticeships or higher education programs. Credentials available under Indiana’s Next Level Jobs initiative have been added to the Credential Engine registry, for example, allowing learners to understand what they are and what the return on investment potential for each might be, all while supporting credit articulation in health care occupations.³ In Florida, the Career and Professional Education Act has established uniform credit weights for approved certifications, allowing learners to leverage industry knowledge towards their academic goals.⁴ And California’s Employment Training Panel funding, which typically supports shorter-term training, has also been available to support related technical instruction for apprentices and pre-apprentices since 2012.⁵
• Create consistent branding and single access points. One risk of using multiple state initiatives to support workforce training is that employers, providers, and participants may have trouble finding what they need in the system. This problem is especially acute when successive gubernatorial administrations launch new “signature” initiatives or rebrand existing options. Shifting brands, new application processes, and competing options may confuse returning employer and provider applicants, whose repeat business and institutional knowledge are important to serving healthy numbers of participants. It can also confuse learners themselves. Where possible, similarly targeted programs—such as Indiana’s Employer Training Grants and its Skills Enhancement Fund—should be combined, or at least presented as clearly differentiated components of a unified initiative with a shared vision. The five-year Career Connect Washington initiative, for example, though focused on training for younger residents, has provided Washington State agencies an opportunity to harmonize program offerings in support of a statewide system that delivers long-term educational success and labor market connections for all learners.⁶
• Support integrated education and training. When thoughtfully designed and funded, short workforce training programs can support rapid employment of job seekers, a successful start for new hires, and job retention and promotion for incumbents. To be effective, however, workers must be educationally prepared to take on their job training. Because America’s inequitable secondary education systems cannot currently guarantee adequate basic skills preparation, workforce training policies should incorporate supports for contextualized adult basic education that allow all learners to make use of workforce training. California’s Employment Training Panel, Iowa’s 260F jobs training fund, Michigan’s New Jobs Training Program, and Washington’s Job Skills Program all permit funding to be used for adult basic education (ABE). State agencies and higher education institutions should highlight ABE resources to contracted employers. Policymakers may want to consider providing additional incentives to encourage employers to support new hires who require remedial education.⁷

These recommendations can support equitable workforce training programs as part of state economic and education agendas. State and local policymakers should bear in mind, however, that workforce training programs can only be as economically promising or equitable as the labor markets they connect with. Skills alone are not enough to guarantee access to good-quality jobs—even bachelor’s degrees are not as reliably valuable as they once were—and workforce training policies must be considered alongside other, broader efforts to make all work more stable and better-paid.

State policymakers should implement wage gain and retention requirements to ensure that employer partners model high-road employment practices. They should engage unions where possible to ensure that training for incumbents and new hires is adequate and equitable. The federal government also has a significant role to play in linking workforce training to high-quality jobs during the ongoing economic recovery. Generous federal spending on infrastructure and publicly subsidized jobs—channeled through educational institutions and accountable employer partners—could support reemployment and career training at the same time.⁸