Job Skills – Page 3

Community College Gap Assistance

Problem

In 2015, a Nebraska Chamber of Commerce Survey of 1,200 employers found that 52% had experienced difficulty hiring qualified employees within the previous year, and one fourth said that limited availability of labor and skilled employees was limiting growth. A number of states, including Nebraska, face workforce shortages in technical job fields that require skills certificates. Despite these shortages, no state or federal aid existed for non-credit community college courses and skills certificates. This created problems both for the economy at large, and individuals. On the state level, it restricted economic growth. On the individual level, it shut employees out from a variety of well-paying careers.

Solution

The Community College Gap Assistance program addresses workforce needs through financial aid to lower-income students taking non-credit courses, helping them to build the 21st century skills they need to work in competitive industries. Skills certificates and degrees have a proven return for employees that seek them. We’re taking a proven way to create career opportunities, work certificates and degrees, and aid is focused on training for industries experiencing workforce shortages. Furthermore, after completing the program, those that have degrees can continue through the career ladder and have a greater ability to pursue an associate’s degree or field-specific training.

Nebraska’s effort builds on Iowa’s success by expanding eligibility so low-income adults can apply. By expanding gap assistance program eligibility, more workers can gain access to in-demand jobs and Nebraska leverages our existing under-employed workforce.

Workforce Development Working Group

Problem

In the past few years, Chattanooga has seen incredible economic growth, unemployment has been cut in half and wages have increased. Despite this growth, there are still neighborhoods in our city with double digit unemployment and low wages and incomes. There are many organizations doing great work to train, hire, and grow income for people in our city, but those efforts don’t always meet un/underemployed people where they are. In addition, many workforce partners are collaborating together but these collaborations were either in isolated groups or fell apart without a convener who could bring together all partners who were committed to action. The result was a duplication of effort, missed opportunities, and too many folks ready to work but with barriers left standing in their way.

Solution

The Workforce Development Working Group brings together employers, training providers, workforce funders, and employees to facilitate collaboration towards growing wages for un/underemployed adults, while ensuring businesses have the best talent from our neighborhoods. The group provides a formal space and procedure to foster collaborations of efforts that were already happening in isolation and launch new ideas. With meetings every other week and two Mayor’s Office staff facilitating, the group operates with few resources. Rather than focusing on systematic workforce development challenges, the group’s purpose is to solve tangible programs and come up with ideas that can be launched quickly and improve upon. The results are a series of life-changing successes for Chattanoogans who are in most need, by meeting them where they are and delivering services more quickly and nimbly. One organization had a career coach bus, but when they took it to a neighborhood no one was showing up to use it. Connecting them with other groups has meant better promotion and that the bus is not taking people to community centers like the City’s Youth and Family Development Centers, where people in the neighborhood were used to going for help.

Veterans Training Crosswalk

Problem

Time and again, servicemembers reentering the civilian workforce find that their military credentials do not entirely align with civilian requirements for a similar job. This can lead to a well-qualified servicemember being unemployed while he or she works to get his or her state-mandated credentials together. At the end of 2016, there were 8,000 unemployed veterans living in Massachusetts, representing 4.6% of the workforce. We can do more for those 8,000 veterans, many of whom may be unemployed due to their military occupational specialty not translating to the civilian workforce.

Solution

My legislation would aid military servicemembers in finding civilian employment by making information on civilian credentialing opportunities available to servicemembers and veterans, helping them make the best decisions on which occupational specialties to pursue during service for their desired profession post-service. This bill also aims to correct burdensome licensing requirements that keep some servicemembers from jobs they’re qualified for — helping to correct licensing misalignment through greater transparency of these credentials and requirements. In addition, the bill requires exchange of information about often nuanced requirements to address considerable misunderstanding by both military and civilian employers about what the other requires for equivalent jobs, while also establishing an online resource to make information easily accessible.

Second Chance Scholars Program

Problem

Young adults and teenagers can be disconnected from their communities, schools, and the workforce, which can lead to involvement in violence and crime.

Solution

For years the county has had a summer jobs program for high school students. Months into his first term, Matthew Meyer created a Second Chance Scholars program. Mr. Meyer utilized data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a recent epidemiological study that identified characteristics most often found in young adults and teenagers engaged in violence in New Castle County’s largest city. The administration then identified a small group of high school students with such characteristics and invited them into the summer jobs program. Using data and smart science, Mr. Meyer’s administration is focused on identifying those individuals most likely to engage in criminal activity and immersing such individuals in alternatives to violence, educational and job training opportunities, mentorship and networks of community support.

Community College Gap Assistance

Problem

Solution

Workforce Development Working Group

Problem

Solution

Veterans Training Crosswalk

Problem

Solution

Second Chance Scholars Program

Problem

Solution

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