Giving Compass' Take:

• Local leaders in Atlanta are advancing sustainable employment systems by collaborating with workforce development stakeholders to provide career, education, and training services. 

• How can donors play a role in improving current workforce development systems? How does upskilling factor into training services?

• Discover more in this workforce development guide for donors. 

Although the national unemployment rate hit a 50-year low in September at 3.5 percent, it’s not 3.5 percent everywhere. Many workers are still struggling to find a job in a tight labor market or need a better job to make ends meet.

Local leaders in Atlanta are addressing this challenge by strengthening current local workforce systems to ensure residents have access to jobs with sustainable wages and to improve the efficiency of businesses with productive and well-trained workers. As explained in our online local workforce system guide, a local workforce system is a set of organizations and activities preparing people for employment, helping workers advance their careers, and building a skilled workforce to support employers and the local economy.

Managed by the United Way of Greater Atlanta, ACR is a funders’ collaborative that channels resources, provides technical assistance, and leads system-level collaboration among a range of workforce development stakeholders. These stakeholders then provide career, education, and training services to “meet employers’ needs for skilled workers and pave the way for frontline workers and the unemployed to advance to a career with financial stability.”

Urban provided ACR and other Atlanta stakeholders with strategic guidance and technical assistance in using data for goal setting, decisionmaking, progress tracking, and implementing policies and programs. To develop a more tailored approach, Urban drew from the guide and workforce systems change framework to shape and facilitate their support.

This helped develop initial indicators and realistic measures to set the stage for more advanced and equitable policies and programs to address racial and economic disparities in Atlanta.

Read the full article about Atlanta's local workforce by Jacinth Jones at Urban Institute.