Helping underserved boosts opportunity for all

As Boulder County continues to stand out as a vibrant, economically vital community, with some of the lowest unemployment rates in Colorado, we still are challenged with hard-to-fill jobs, lack of access to real opportunities for the lower educated, families living in poverty and the working poor. Our current labor market offers a ripe opportunity to engage and maintain employers to work together to support economic development while also helping the poor, and thus improve labor-market efficiency as well as career equity.

Workforce Development Programs stand ready to connect community, government, business and education to actively shape a robust, talented and sustainable workforce. Local workforce areas are tasked to help job seekers access employment, education and training and support services to succeed in the labor market and to connect employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy.

With a focus on innovation in talent development and assisting job seekers with barriers, it is imperative to be strategic and creative and demonstrate successful models that can be scaled up. 

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Three types of workforce-development approaches support mobility up the career ladder and across occupations, strengthening our communities and the cultivation of a well-training, productive and competitive workforce:

• Incumbent worker training provides industry-identified skills training for recently hired employees. This training supports employee retention, upward mobility and potential for entry-level job creation.

• Career Pathways are a series of connected education and training programs, work experiences, and student support services that enable individuals to secure a job or advance in a demand industry or occupation.

• Sector Partnerships are the vehicle for aligning workforce development, education and economic-development initiatives with industries’ needs in an effective, results-driven manner.

Linking education and training more closely to real opportunities is essential in developing our workforce and creating sustainable employment for our community members – especially for sectors and employers where well-paying jobs are available for less-educated workers and where these jobs will not be easily filled by employers on their own.

Workforce Boulder County in partnership with Techtonic Academy is one example of programming that has created real opportunity for job seekers. Workforce Boulder County helps to feed the academy with participants and supports their wages, and Techtonic Academy provides the training to become a junior developer. The focus is on those underserved populations who may not normally have ease of access into these occupations.

Following their training, the participants are expected to move on to permanent employment in software development. Information technology is a promising industry in Boulder County, with high projected growth rates and openings, while also offering a sustainable living wage.

Health care, also a promising industry, offers a potential inroad for job seekers looking for career mobility and a livable wage. Workforce Boulder County has partnered in the past with Longmont United Hospital by supporting the wages of newly hired Certified Nursing Assistants while LUH staff on-boarded and trained the incumbents. Most of these job seekers retained their employment and many of them have moved up the ladder to careers in nursing.

Matching seekers with jobs that offer long-term benefit for the individual, family and community requires partnership, strategy and a future focus. Boulder County is a leader in innovation, has a strong economy and diverse industry sectors. With business as our key partner in developing the workforce of the future and opening doors for the underserved, the opportunities for career equity, stable employment and secure incomes for all becomes more possible.

Erin Jones is executive director of Workforce Boulder County.