Recommendations to Improve Employment Opportunities for New Haven Residents
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Recommendations to Improve Employment Opportunities for New Haven Residents 245 Stevenson Road New Haven, CT 06515 (203) 513-1579 Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3 The Two-Generation Perspective for Better Employment ............................................................................................................. 5 Organization of the Report .............................................................................................................................................................. 6 Recommendations ......................................................................................................................................... 7 Recommendation 1: Create a workforce intermediary organization ........................................................................................... 8 Recommendation 2: Launch a city-wide “Skill-Up New Haven” campaign ................................................................................... 8 Recommendation 3: Establish a target for increasing adult literacy by five percent (5%) .......................................................... 8 Recommendation 4: Increase the employment rate among New Haven residents by 8% ......................................................... 8 Recommendation 5: Re-establish a Workforce Development Roundtable for local service providers ...................................... 8 The Skills Mismatch between Job Seekers and Jobs ....................................................................................... 9 Demand Side Labor Market Characteristics and trends to 2020 ................................................................................... 9 Supply Side Characteristics of Adult New Haven Job Seekers ..................................................................................... 12 Closing the Gap ............................................................................................................................................................... 14 Existing Resources .......................................................................................................................................................................... 15 A Scan of New Haven’s Workforce Development Providers ......................................................................... 17 Methodology .................................................................................................................................................................. 18 Workforce Providers ...................................................................................................................................................... 19 Workforce Program Components ................................................................................................................ 22 Participant Assessments: ............................................................................................................................................................... 22 Basic Skills Remediation: ................................................................................................................................................................ 22 Job Readiness: ................................................................................................................................................................................. 23 Job Development, Placement and Retention Support ................................................................................................................. 24 What is a workforce intermediary and what does it do? .............................................................................. 24 Why New Haven needs an Intermediary focused on the Regional Labor Market ...................................................... 25 An Operating Definition of a Workforce Intermediary ................................................................................................. 26 Opportunities for a workforce intermediary in New Haven .......................................................................... 27 The Workforce Intermediary as a Catalyst for a Skill-Up Campaign ............................................................................ 27 The Workforce Intermediary as a Catalyst in the Construction Sector ....................................................................... 28 Increasing New Haven’s Employment Rate .................................................................................................................. 29 Summary...................................................................................................................................................... 31 Appendix 1: Organizational Profiles ............................................................................................................................... a Career Resources Inc.-STRIVE .......................................................................................................................................................... b Columbus House Inc. ........................................................................................................................................................................ e New Haven Workforce Recommendations Community Action Agency of New Haven ....................................................................................................................................... i Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology .................................................................................................................................. k Construction Workforce Initiative 2 ................................................................................................................................................ n Easter Seals Goodwill Industries ...................................................................................................................................................... o EMERGE Connecticut Inc ................................................................................................................................................................... s Junta Inc. .......................................................................................................................................................................................... w Marrakech Inc. ................................................................................................................................................................................... x New Haven Family Alliance ............................................................................................................................................................ aa New Haven Works ........................................................................................................................................................................... cc Project MORE, Inc. .......................................................................................................................................................................... gg Workforce Alliance ........................................................................................................................................................................... jj Appendix 2: Workforce Alliance Customer Service Summary, FY 2013-14 ................................................................... i Appendix 3: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements through 2020 ............................................................. ii Appendix 4: List of Persons Contributing Information to the Report ........................................................................... iv New Haven Workforce Recommendations Executive Summary The gap between the employment skills of many low-income New Haven job seekers, and the hiring needs of area employers must be addressed in order for New Haven residents to secure jobs that help build financial stability and lead to career growth. Solving the jobs crisis in New Haven requires that two problems be addressed simultaneously: on the demand side, employers must be willing to hire qualified New Haven residents. On the supply side, job seekers must develop the skills employers need. In practical terms, this means that workforce development services must prove effective at improving the low literacy and numeracy skills that keep many New Haven jobseekers out of entry-level positions and the training programs that will lead to better-paying employment. The root problem in New Haven’s workforce development landscape has been and continues to be the low basic literacy and numeracy skills of many New Haven job seekers. While over two thousand New Haven residents were connected to a job through the Workforce Alliance’s One Stop Career Center, fifty-eight percent (58%) of city residents who tested at the Career Center in 2013, were at or below a 6th grade literacy level, and according to the Literacy Coalition of Greater New Haven, 30% of adults in New Haven are at the lowest literacy levels. Other employment- related issues such as a felony history, adequate childcare, lack of soft skills, and transportation also present