As the principal source of public workforce development funding, WIOA plays a critical role in helping individuals prepare for new employment opportunities. However, according to a recently released RAND Corporation study, “only about one-third of WIOA-targeted occupations across all states qualify as both in-demand and high-quality positions.” 

The report reveals a concerning trend whereby many, including more than half of training programs offered through the Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL) do not offer training exclusively for positions that are both in-demand and high quality (IDHQ). For the purposes of the research study, positions that are defined as in-demand were those that required no more than a bachelor’s degree and were projected to grow across a variety of public and private labor market projections. High-quality positions are those that support economic self-sufficiency according to the MIT Living Wage calculator.

This means that a large portion of training programs that are eligible for public dollars are misaligned with economic realities, training people for jobs that are either not demanded or offer poor labor market returns. And while there may be a selection of occupations that are still vital to powering our economy that may be in-demand but not high-quality, this study does raise some concerning realities. 

We’re simultaneously leaving opportunity on the table for talent across critical occupations while setting up many people to fail if there’s not a job at the end of their training journey. This underscores the need to have more dynamic balancing across occupations and program seats funded, likely with geographic components and place-based consideration for how many people we train for local labor markets.

And in our experience working directly with local and state workforce development organizations that steward WIOA funding within their region, we know this is a prevalent challenge that can have many different causes and confounding factors in different parts of the US. There are challenges related to recruiting cohorts of students for in-demand positions because people either don’t understand those roles, limited capacity to support career exploration for talent, outdated technology systems to actually broker connections for individuals to pathways, or lagging data.

The research team finds that one contributing factor to the limited number of occupations that fit both of the definitions of in-demand and high-quality within WIOA plans is that state WIOA agencies are just commonly missing many occupations that could fit into in-demand definitions. Additionally, some states just have a limited number of roles that are going to meet these thresholds. 

We also know that the number of program graduates matters just as much, if not more, than the number of available programs. ETP programs produce fewer completers than job openings for 90% of in-demand and high-quality occupations. On the flip side, for a few IDHQ occupations, states’ ETP programs produce more completers than available job openings, sometimes by the thousands.

What’s causing this and what can we do about it? These are deep, structural challenges that have calcified over years of rule making and outdated technology. This is a symptom of an outdated, disconnected, and largely complex set of policy challenges related to integrated state planning and localized decisions related to occupational and program designation that can far too often feel like a compliance exercise rather than a real period of planning. However, we can do better as a system by developing dynamically updating, real-time snapshots of employer demand for high-quality positions, placed side-by-side of program capacity with clear occupational mapping to available seats across not just ETPLs, but 2-year and 4-year programs, inclusive of those that will eventually receive designation for Workforce Pell funding.

We can do better by developing program navigation and matching systems through talent marketplaces that recognize the dynamic nature of both what employers need and what programs can offer across diverse regional economies. Past systems have made it challenging for talent to understand how their current skills and interests translate to real economic opportunity and what programs will be the best bet to help them get there. The reality of the situation today is that workforce development systems haven’t had the tools or technology at their fingertips to frequently, with high levels of confidence, provide clarity on those pathways to individuals due to lagging data, disparate signals from employers on what they need, and siloed systems. Making the distinctions clearer for job seekers on what pathways are available can help create stronger alignment between training investments, participant outcomes, and employer demand.