This guide is a result of the 2018-2019 National Governors Association (NGA) Chair's initiative, "Good Jobs for All Americans," led by Montana Governor Steve Bullock. This initiative aimed to understand the changing world of work and the factors that affect an individual's ability to connect to a good job and for businesses to access the…

In Mississippi, the bulk of the responsibility to conduct workforce training falls on the community colleges. With the recent trends of large industry relocating overseas, layoffs, and plant closures, these challenges have become prevalent in rural America. Through the development and delivery of workforce programs to local business and industry,…

Regions around the country are grappling with current and anticipated skills shortages and, in some cases, labor shortages. Economic prosperity depends heavily on the quality of the workforce, and yet far too few regions have recognized their best underutilized asset: the mature workforce. Because mature workers are nearing traditional retirement…

Within this document is testimony delivered by seven individuals at a Congressional hearing on what role government and education should play in revitalizing U.S. productivity. Of particular interest at the hearing was a study made by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Commission on Industrial Productivity entitled "Made in…

As early as elementary school, a Japanese child faces a sequence of narrowing choices for an occupational future. Through decisions on further schooling, curriculum, and job entry, earlier choices severely restrict later ones. Usually, men go to four-year universities to study engineering or social sciences. Women generally attend two-year…

Contrary to reports, high technology is not likely to add large numbers of jobs for highly educated and trained persons. A policy of recurrent education must be established so that individuals can move from the workplace to retraining programs and back. (MLW)

Clarifying the influences determining how and to what extent highly qualified personnel are employed, this study discusses those sorts of economic and technological advances affecting employment potentials. Two main trends in scientific and technological progress--computerized industries and the high science-content of production--have so…

The need for a new agenda for higher education is discussed. It is suggested that colleges need an informed vision of the kind of people needed to transform the economy. Higher education needs to ask whether late 19th-century models of education are appropriate for educating people for a 21st-century world of global competition. Five areas that…

Productivity is a central issue these days in any discussion about the economy. However, there is much more talk about productivity than there is real knowledge. We need a clear understanding of what direction productivity improvement efforts will take and what efforts are required to retrain the existing work force. (SSH)

California Community Colleges (CCC's) provide a statewide network of centers and programs to assist the state's businesses and industries with education, training, and information services. This report describes outcomes for these economic development partnerships between the CCC's and business, industry, and government during the 1992-93 fiscal…

Four major trends reshaping the American economy are having a tremendous effect on the number and nature of jobs in the United States: (1) corporate downsizing; (2) the outsourcing of work and services; (3) increasing use of "contingent" workers; and (4) the increasing income disparity between high school and college graduates. These trends have…

At the meeting reported in this document, 65 union leaders and staff interacted with officials from 16 colleges and universities and 8 higher education associations to discuss and report on issues of labor-higher education collaboration. These edited proceedings include the following presentations: "Developing the Intellectual Equivalent of…

Six observers studied both school-to-work transition programs for youth and retraining programs for adult workers in three Western European countries--West Germany, Sweden, and England. They identified European solutions to a pressing problem in the United States: youth and adult workers whose skills are inadequate for today's and tomorrow's jobs.…

Describes the Fund for Appalachian Industrial Retraining (FAIR) program, which has trained over 14,000 multiskilled workers in Appalachian manufacturing in the last four years. FAIR works with firms in 18 Appalachian Ohio counties, arranging onsite and offsite programs and providing matching funds for customized training. (SAS)

At-risk program participants, those students who are in danger of not making a successful transition from school or preemployment training programs to productive lives, usually remain on the fringes of the economy. Instruction in school-to-work curricula is designed to help students obtain jobs, but seldom addresses the issues of the ongoing use…