GOV. MAURA HEALEY released a state workforce agenda on Monday that aims to address the over 242,000 unfilled job postings in the state by training individuals for the industries with the biggest employee shortfalls and tapping into populations underrepresented in the workforce.
The agenda identifies four key industries where the workforce is particularly lacking: manufacturing, healthcare, life sciences, and clean energy. The agenda aims to funnel individuals into those tracks by leveraging existing state programs. It also supports the creation of partnerships between local employers and regional teams tasked with attracting job seekers to high-need fields.
“The power of the statewide plan is that it brings all of our workforce, education, employer, and state partners together unified with a vision and a strategy,” said Healey, in a press conference. “It calls on us to act with inclusive values to support people who have been often underrepresented or underserved and essentially untapped talent. By helping them, we can also meet the needs of employers large and small in industries statewide.”
The state’s workforce agenda is part of a larger plan that the state is required to submit to the federal government every four years as part of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
The state plan applies to programs that collectively use over $400 million in state and federal funding. It does not allocate any additional funding to workforce development but rather aims to factor the plan’s goals and strategies into pre-existing programs.
For example, MassReconnect is a program that offers Massachusetts residents without a college degree who are aged 25 and up free tuition to community college. The program has boosted enrollment in community colleges across the state. The agenda recommends that individuals in the MassReconnect program be connected to high-demand occupations.
According to Healey, the agenda is about strategically aligning what programs already exist, supporting existing programs, and making adjustments to better connect different stakeholders and programs.
The agenda recommends a partnership between MassReconnect and MassHire, a state initiative to provide training for job seekers.
Lauren Jones, Healey’s secretary of labor and workforce development, said her office is working on a program to provide stipends to eligible individuals who participate in certain job training initiatives. This program is still in the early stages but, according to documents released by Jones’s office to solicit a vendor to issue payments, an estimated 1,500 individuals are projected to receive up to $5,000 each, or a total of $7.5 million.
“The good news is that the agenda is a report that will not sit on a shelf,” said Jones. “In fact, we are already getting to work on the strategies outlined in the agenda.”