By Amy Blair & Ranita Jain, Aspen Institute, June 13, 2018
Years into the economic recovery, young adults still face difficulty connecting to the labor market. For young people of color, the Great Recession has had long-lasting effects and has compounded systemic obstacles. Living in communities without a strong employment base, attending low-performing schools, and lacking networks of people who can help them get a start make it difficult for young people to get a firm footing in today’s workforce. Partnerships of workforce programs in five communities — Cleveland, Hartford, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Seattle — are engaged in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Generation Work Initiative to collaboratively examine local workforce systems, identify problems, and problem-solve to help connect more young adults to employment.
In Generation Work communities, we have seen providers working in new ways to identify and cultivate job opportunities that meet a range of young adults’ needs — including connecting them to jobs that provide opportunities to learn; jobs with supportive supervisory and mentoring practices; and jobs with scheduling practices that are supportive of a young adult’s need to balance work, school, and family care responsibilities. Workforce providers are using a range of strategies to identify and develop these kinds of employment opportunities.
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