Federal Funding Bolsters Regional Workforce Initiatives

From the January/February 2007 Issue of InFocus

Projects such as The Califorinia Innovation Corridor have been awarded funding by WIRED to develop coursework to fill a demand in high-tech jobs.

Photo courtesy of WIRED, Department of Labor

"It is imperative that businesses and the workforce system team up with their region's universities and community colleges to ensure that workers are armed with the right skills to thrive in the 21st century," according to Emily Stover DeRocco, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training. A new Labor grant program—The Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) initiative—encourages regional industries and higher education institutions to combine forces in an effort to expand employment opportunities.

The Department of Labor launched WIRED in February 2006, with the announcement, making 13 awards of $15 million each for a total of $195 million in grants to 13 regions over a three-year period. A second set of 13 WIRED regional awardees was announced in

January 2007. Each of these regions was offered an immediate investment of $500,000 to support the development of an implementation plan. If the plan is acceptable, each region will receive an additional $4.5 million investment over a three-year period. To date, the Department of Labor has invested $260 million in 26 regions in the country. On Feb. 13, it announced a competition for a third group of WIRED awards. This competition remains open through April 13, 2007.

WIRED Regions

First Generation

Coastal Maine
Northeast Pennsylvania
Upstate New York
Piedmont Triad North Carolina
Mid-Michigan
Western Michigan
North Central Indiana
Florida’s Great Northwest
Western Alabama and Eastern Mississippi
Greater Kansas City
Denver Metro
Central and Eastern Montana
California Coast

Second Generation

Central-Eastern Puerto Rico
Southwestern Connecticut
Northern New Jersey
Delaware Valley
Appalachian Ohio
Southeast Michigan
Tennessee Valley
Southwest Indiana
Southeastern Wisconsin
Arkansas Delta
Rio Grande Valley Texas
Wasatch Range Utah
Northern California

The monies to fund these regions are derived from H-1B fees collected from employers. The H-1B program allows an employer to temporarily employ a foreign worker in the U.S. on a non-immigrant basis in specialized occupations for which there is an inadequate supply of qualified American workers.

Wall Street West

One of the regions to receive an award in the first wave of WIRED funding was Northeast Pennsylvania. The region proposed to create a hub for financial institutions and secondary related operations. The goal is to create a "Wall Street West" that could serve as reliable back-up operations for New York in the event of a disaster. More than 20 higher education institutions in the region are available to support the workforce development needs of the financial services sector. Jack Gido, Director of Economic and Workforce Development at The Pennsylvania State University, says they "are supporting the Wall Street West WIRED Initiative by utilizing group systems technology to conduct focus groups to get input from employers in the financial services businesses, banking, and insurance, to help determine their workforce needs."

Strong regional collaborative efforts are already in place among economic and workforce development organizations in the region, and Northeast Pennsylvania colleges and universities are prepared to further this mission. "Penn State hopes to add value and be a good partner in transforming Northeastern Pennsylvania," says Gido.

California Innovation Corridor

The Department of Labor's WIRED Initiative aims to address changing worksorce needs.

Photo courtesy of WIRED

The California Innovation Corridor, which comprises 13 counties, including Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego, is also among the first WIRED grant recipients. The region suffered a 26 percent decline in manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2004, and a 34 percent drop in computer and electronic production. The California Space Authority (CSA) has taken the lead in developing an "innovation corridor" that incorporates more than 60 industry, government, education, economic development and workforce development entities with the aim being to help the state address changing workforce needs.

"The Innovation Corridor project is huge," explains Sandra Clark, Director of Corporate Training at University of California-Santa Cruz Extension. "But we have a very specific piece of it."

CSA, NOVA—a nonprofit, federally funded employment and training agency—chose to fill a specific niche. It created a certificate program to help retrain software developers for positions in the aerospace and defense industry. "Based on NOVA's research, a large number of people were laid off in the dot-com bust. These software engineers, many over 40 years old, were not getting hired," explains Clark. "This, combined with research from businesses like Lockhead Martin—where one-third of their employees are eligible for retirement—suggests the industry will have a big need for new employees."

The Certificate in Software Development for Aerospace and Defense Applications will launch in April 2007. UCSC Extension will offer the coursework in the evening and weekends. NOVA's role is to help place the students in aerospace jobs after they have successfully completed the certificate program.