Working Toward Reinvention: SkillWorks at Three

In 2003, the Boston funder collaborative launched SkillWorks: Partners for a Productive Workforce, an ambitious, five-year initiative to improve the way the city's workforce development system serves low-income adults and employers. SkillWorks has since become a national model, inspiring other communities and states to launch similar initiatives. This report, by JFF's Geri Scott, looks at what SkillWorks has to tell us about the formation of partnerships, engaging employers, aligning resources around a common goal, and the challenges in advancing low-skilled adults toward family-sustaining incomes.

Working Toward Reinvention (484K)

Profiles in Workforce Development

Prepared by the Workforce Solutions Group for SkillWorks, this document tells the stories of Massachusetts residents using the current workforce development system.

Profiles in Workforce Development (File Size: 256K)

Building a 21st Century Workforce: A Forum with the Candidates for Governor of Massachusetts

(Event Program)

The conference program for the gubernatorial forum hosted by SkillWorks on June 29th includes background information, candidate questions, and speaker biographies.

Program (File Size: 276K)

Massachusetts Labor Markets in Mid-2005: An Assessment of Job Vacancy and Unemployment Developments and Their Implications for Workforce Development Policy (2006)

This paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, shows that Massachusetts's very weak job-generating performance since 2000 calls for a major strengthening of economic development efforts, and that there is a clear need to improve ties between the state's economic development and workforce development systems.

Massachusetts Labor Markets in Mid-2005 (File Size: 216K)

Occupational Employment and Job Vacancy Developments in Massachusetts, 2000-2005: Implications for Future Workforce Development Policy (2006)

This 2006 paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, analyzes employment and job vacancy developments in Massachusetts by occupational category in recent years both at the state level and in selected sub-state areas, and it assesses the implications of these findings for future workforce development planning and policymaking in the Commonwealth.

Occupational Employment and Job Vacancy Developments in Massachusetts, 2000-2005 (File Size: 485K)  

Employment and Job Vacancy Developments Across Industries of Massachusetts and Local Workforce Development Areas/Economic Development Districts: Their Implications for Future Job Training and Workforce Development Initiatives

This 2005 paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, analyzes industry employment and job vacancy developments in Massachusetts in recent years, both at the state level and in selected sub-state areas, and it assesses the implications of these findings for workforce development planning and policymaking.

Employment and Job Vacancy Developments Across Industries of Massachusetts and Local Workforce Development Areas/Economic Development Districts (File Size: 480K)

Wage and Salary Employment Trends in Massachusetts, 1982-2005: Findings on Recent Job Growth and Decline Across Industrial Sectors and Geographic Areas of the State, 2001-2005

To assist the Workforce Solutions Group in its research and public policy promotion work in support of SkillWorks, the Center for Labor Market Studies of Northeastern University has been engaged in a series of research activities on labor market developments in Massachusetts and their implications for the planning and design of future job training programs. The first research paper in this series describes the key data sources used in conducting the above analyses and explains the concepts and measures underlying the various employment and job vacancy estimates.

Wage and Salary Employment Trends in Massachusetts, 1982-2005 (File Size: 176K)

Community Health Worker Advancement: A Research Summary

Community health workers are essential to the U.S. public health system. They work in diverse settings and under myriad titles to improve access to health care for underserved populations using culturally appropriate methods. Despite their importance, community health workers are often not well rewarded, and their job tenure is unstable. Well-defined career paths are lacking, as are systematic skills sets and credentials recognized across work settings and usable for higher education.

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, SkillWorks: Partners for a Productive Workforce asked JFF to recommend adaptations of the SkillWorks Workforce Partnership model in order to apply that approach to career advancement for community health workers. As the basis for these recommendations, JFF conducted research on the challenges to and national best practices for the advancement of community health workers.

Community Health Worker Advancement: A Research Summary (File Size: 176K)

Recent Trends in the Levels Distribution and Adequacy of the Annual Earnings of Massachusetts Workers: Implications for the Boston Workforce Development Initiative

This paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, examines earnings of Massachusetts adult workers. It seeks to address such issues as: how well year-round, full-time workers in Massachusetts fared in improving their real annual earnings during the 1990s, how changes in earnings varied across gender, educational attainment, race-ethnic, and nativity subgroups, how successful Massachusetts full-time, year-round workers in 1999 were in earning enough to support a family of four, and how rising inequality developments in Massachusetts compared to those in the other 49 states.