At a critical junction for the American workforce, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (USCCF) has launched a new initiative to develop new models for investment in the workforce of the future.

In early April the Department of Labor announced a $42.5 million grant opportunity for the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grant Program. The program is to support the development of new or expanding registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs) for youth, including quality pre-apprenticeship programs that lead to a RAP.

As the pandemic turned workplaces upside down, women in particular have been negatively impacted. Women, especially women of color, are more likely to have been laid off or furloughed and the supports that working women relied on, namely school and child care, have been upended.

Completing a subbaccalaureate program can translate into higher pay and greater employment outcomes compared to those who have no education beyond a high school diploma, but the median salary of those who completed a certificate versus those who did not was the same ($20,000) among students who were no longer enrolled after three years. The results are detailed in a recent brief from the National Center for Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education.

With efforts underway to return people to jobs, the time is ripe to rethink our approach to the workforce. Instead of returning to the way things were, now is the time to re-think the kind of country we want to have says Carl Van Horn, founding director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Van Horn and Jane Oates, president of WorkingNation, presented their ideas for workforce recovery and lessons learned from the Great Recession during a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Center of Workforce Development webinar yesterday.

In an effort to help Alabamians advance into higher-paying careers and understand how higher income from new careers can establish a path toward self-sufficiency, the state of Alabama and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta have partnered to launch a new career tool.

The May jobs report that was released last Friday contained better news than the disappointing numbers from April, with May figures showing 559,000 jobs added and unemployment declining by 0.3 percentage point to 5.8 percent. But the jobs picture remains complicated.

In a field once dominated by government agencies and incumbent organizations, the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry has experienced a rapid landscape change over the past decade as private companies and high-profile organizations launch commercial space programs and advance novel exploration and communications projects. These private companies present new competition to the traditional A&D industry.

Manufacturers in the U.S. have been facing workforce shortages despite nearly six years of recent job gains in the sector. Those gains and more have been wiped out by the Covid-19 pandemic, compounding the labor shortage problem for a sector that has often struggled to keep pace with the changing demands of technology. However, this exacerbated labor shortage shows that robots are not taking all the jobs, only increasing the level of tech skills workers need to do their jobs.

In its effort to support a more diverse tech talent pipeline in the state, the Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP), in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, has outlined a plan to boost the tech workforce in the state and help diverse populations’ access pathways into IT.

As noted in our separate overview, the 25-page American Jobs Plan provides goals, highlights and proposals, but also raises questions about how proposals would be implemented and even exactly how much money would be spent.

Frontline workers in Michigan who don’t have a degree may find a tuition-free pathway to college or a technical certificate, in the same manner as the G.I. Bill following World War II, while others states are also pursuing options for increased educational opportunities for workers who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19.

Faced with the sudden, unprecedented fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont last month launched a new resource to provide workers and businesses in Connecticut with career tools, including partnering with Indeed and workforce training providers.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is recommending a set of bold actions to help ensure continued American leadership in Industries of the Future (IotF), comprising artificial intelligence (AI), quantum information science (QIS), advanced manufacturing, advanced communications, and biotechnology.

After more than a year of research and facing greater disruption to the workforce than imagined at the outset, the National Governors Association (NGA) has released a guide for governors and state policymakers to help build a technologically resilient workforce.

As governors continue to roll out their State-of-the State addresses in the month of February, we continue to see a heavy focus on recovering from the pandemic. Given most state’s fiscal condition, governors have been generally hesitant to roll out new initiatives during this time, although broadband continues to receive attention, especially with the renewed attention surrounding its importance during the pandemic.

Last month, Gov. Laura Kelly (D), alongside former state governors Mike Hayden (R) and John Carlin (D), and the Lt. Gov.

Helping to meet the challenge of fighting a global pandemic while growing high-quality jobs during an economic downturn, the life sciences industry showed its strength over the course of the past year. An update to the biennial Life Science Workforce Trends report from the Coalition of State Bioscience Institutes (CSBI) asserts that it is because of the industry’s skilled-talent base and sets out to assess the industry’s position and priorities in 2021, focusing on its demands for workforce and talent.

Falling demand for office real estate and public transit, greater need for flexible child care and requirements for reskilling are some of the insights gained into the future of Massachusetts’ workforce.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center recently released the third report in its Some College, No Credentials (SCNC) series investigating the educational trajectory of U.S. adults who have left postsecondary education without receiving any credentials. This report addresses concerns about low student success rates across the nation and intends to identify opportunities where SCNC students can be encouraged to continue postsecondary programs and earn credentials.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov.

The National Science Foundation recently announced the four 2022 NSF INCLUDES awardees. These new alliances will each receive $10 million over five years to contribute to building an inclusive STEM workforce. The awardees will tackle issues like increasing data science capacity at minority-serving institutions (MSIs), increasing the representation of Native American and Alaska Native students in STEM fields, and supporting equitable pathways to postdoctoral fellowship positions.

The 2022 NSF INCLUDES Alliances are:

In an effort to alleviate the nationwide shortage of semiconductors, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced two cross-sector partnerships, one with Intel Corp. and the other partnership with Micron Technology, Inc.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced a new initiative — the Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies (ExLENT) initiative and seeks proposals to address barriers in the STEM workforce by encouraging partnerships among industry, educational, and government organizations.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) recently announced its largest POWER (Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization) Initiative funding package. This funding package awards nearly $47 million to 52 projects in 181 counties to support economic diversification and mitigate job losses from coal-related industries in Appalachian communities.