WorkRise will host a set of webinars from October 18 to October 20, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET as part of a three-day conference entitled, "Charting a Resilient Future for US Workers: Solutions to Navigate an Uncertain Economy." The webinars will highlight the highs and lows that workers and families have faced as a result of seismic shifts in the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a once-in-a-lifetime economic shock, followed by a robust government response to stabilize the economy. Nearly three years later, a tight labor market has led to historic wage growth and better jobs—particularly for workers earning low wages. Inflation, however, has undermined these gains, and policies to control prices could lead to higher unemployment. Longer-term trends such as income inequality, automation, climate change, and demographic shifts pose uncertainty for the present and future of work.

The conference explores the challenge and promise of the current moment, innovative policies and practices aimed at improving job quality and economic mobility, and creative, cross-sector solutions that are turning risk into resilience so that workers, businesses, and communities can thrive. Each day’s webinar will be anchored around a specific theme – The Challenge and Promise of the Current Moment (October 18); Innovative Practices to Shape the Future of Work (October 19); Turning Threats into Opportunity (October 20) – with presentations from stakeholder networks, including workers, employers, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and advocates who will share actionable insights and solutions to navigate the road ahead. Workers will also share reflections on their experiences with economic uncertainty and their hopes about the future.

This report is the second in a series on the implementation and impacts of a novel program that sought to integrate Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) into an employment training program for young adults. To develop and implement the program, Family and Workforce Centers of America, a long-standing provider of employment training in St. Louis, Missouri, enhanced one of its traditional employment training programs to include lessons from a widely implemented relationship education curriculum, along with additional content on workplace relationship skills and personal finances. The integrated program called Career STREAMS (Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services) offered daily workshops for two weeks covering employment-related topics and information on HMRE, weekly booster sessions following the workshops, and individualized case management and job development services. This report documents the study methods, describes program costs and implementation, and presents program impacts after one year.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Chief Evaluation Office, in partnership with the Department’s Employment and Training Administration, will host a webinar on October 13, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to highlight key findings from the recently released Career Pathways Descriptive and Analytical Project. During the webinar, there will be a screening of four short videos from the Department’s Evidence Coffee Break series, where researchers will share actionable information for practitioners thinking about designing or improving career pathways programs, and hold a live question and answer session with the study team.

Topics covered in the session include:
• How well has the career pathways approach worked?
• Launchpad occupations and why they matter for career pathways programs
• Career advancement from mid-level occupations for women and people of color
• Evidence-based insights for career pathways and other employment and training programs

Early adulthood is a critical life stage for education, employment, relationship formation, and reproductive health, but young adults’ experiences in these areas are highly varied. Using averages to describe youths’ experiences may miss meaningful differences that could alter their developmental trajectories. Understanding these trajectories—and their implications for youth of varying races, ethnicities, and genders—can help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers support young people’s development and ensure greater well-being into their adulthoods. This brief summarizes findings from a new report which reveals different employment pathways taken by young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds through the use of trajectory analysis—a person-based approach that allows clustering people into meaningful patterns based on their employment earnings and the fringe benefits they receive.

The growing effort to define program, job, and credential quality requires investments in P–20W data systems to capture measures of quality and make that information transparent to the public. The National Skills Coalition will host a webinar on September 22, 2022, at 2:00 p.m. ET, which will highlight the importance of state data systems in collecting data on program, job, and credential quality, providing timely information to the public, and using data to ensure equitable attainment of quality jobs and credentials. Two states will discuss their efforts to prioritize data collection and transparent access to information.

UpSkill America — an initiative of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — and the Latinos and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, with support from Google.org, launched the Digital Skills and the Latino Workforce research project to better understand the challenges and opportunities that Latino workers and Latino business owners face to succeed in the digital economy. The Aspen Institute will host a webinar on September 22, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET during which participants will learn more about promising approaches to digital upskilling of Latino workers, students, and households implemented by organizations around the country.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration will host a webinar on September 21, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET which will focus on transforming the public workforce system by using data to support the economic mobility of historically marginalized communities in training, programs, policies, and initiatives. Presenters include representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Policy Development and Research, the city of Phoenix, Arizona, and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

This year’s publication describes how children in America are in the midst of a mental health crisis, struggling with anxiety and depression at unprecedented levels. It presents national and state data across four domains — economic well-being, education, health and family and community — and ranks states in overall child well-being. The report includes pre-pandemic figures as well as more recent statistics, and shares the latest information of its kind available.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Workforce Investment held a webinar on August 11, 2022 to support the workforce system’s understanding of the complex issues around substance use disorder and help them reach and assist individuals and businesses impacted by opioid addiction. Guest speakers from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services shared an overview of "Strategies for Serving Individuals Impacted by Opioid Use Disorder: A Toolkit for Ohio’s Public Workforce System." The Toolkit is designed to guide and support Workforce Boards and workforce development professionals as they implement policies, processes, and services. It is built around the following key pillars of success: Strong Local Partnerships; Holistic Care Management; Steps to Success; Recovery-Friendly Workplaces; and Knowledgeable Staff. Transcripts of the webinar and the Toolkit are available for downloading.

Frontline workers recently rated job growth and learning opportunities in the top three things they want in a job. Many workers, however, receive little, if any, training from their employers. This lack of investment in workers’ skills impedes workers’ opportunities for advancement, trapping many in a cycle of dead-end, low-quality jobs where women and people of color make up a disproportionate number of workers. Businesses that invest in workers’ skills development and design jobs with work-based learning (WBL) opportunities, however, offer a more promising path.

When designed well, work-based learning provides a number of benefits to workers and businesses. WBL approaches such as apprenticeship, on-the-job training, and other forms of employer-sponsored training can offer workers the opportunity for upward mobility and the chance to earn and learn at the same time while employers gain a more engaged and skilled workforce. The Aspen Institute will host a webinar on September 14, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. ET, during which presenters will discuss the following questions: How can businesses design jobs that include quality work-based learning that improves opportunity for workers and business outcomes? What barriers and opportunities do employers face in creating apprenticeship and other work-based learning models, particularly for front-line workers? What can we do to equitably expand work-based learning to workers who need it the most?