The document provides background information on the history and role of workforce development. It discusses how workforce development got its start through initiatives like the Morrill Acts, New Deal programs, and various job training acts. It outlines the key goals and components of workforce development systems including the Workforce Investment Act, which established One-Stop centers to provide services to both jobseekers and employers. The document also distinguishes workforce development, which focuses on connecting people to jobs, from economic development, which aims to create new jobs through business attraction and growth strategies.

1. #EDbridgeWD
History and Role of
Workforce Development
Presented by: Colleen LaRose

2. #EDbridgeWD
Camoin Associates (www.camoinassociates.com)
specializes in providing economic development
solutions to both public and private sector clients.
Camoin Associates has had the opportunity to serve
economic development organizations (EDOs), local
and state governments from Maine to Texas, private
sector corporations, and developers.
The firm’s work includes economic development
strategies in communities across the country, from
small, rural communities to large metropolitan areas
and entire states. In many of these instances,
building consensus among leadership around critical
opportunities and issues was at the core of our
work.
Founded in 2012, the North East Regional
Employment and Training Association
(www.nereta.org) provides training to economic
development organizations (EDOs) and workforce
investment boards (WIBs) throughout the country.
This organization has significantly opened lines of
communication between professionals in economic
development, workforce development, education,
and business through LinkedIn groups and
professional development webinars that NERETA
provides on a national basis.

3. #EDbridgeWD
What is Workforce Development?
Wikipedia: WD is an American economic development approach that
attempts to enhance a region's economic stability and prosperity by
focusing on people rather than businesses.
Federal Reserve of St Louis: WD has come to describe a relatively
wide range of activities, policies and programs employed by geographies
to create, sustain and retain a viable workforce that can support current
and future business and industry.
Colleen’s definition: WD is the government system that helps put
people to work.

4. #EDbridgeWD
WD helps put people to work by providing:
• Improved communication between business and education providers
• Employer/employee matching services
• Skills training and connections to educational resources
• Improving access to career pathways (articulation agreements, incumbent worker training programs,
ESL training, computer training, volunteering, etc)
• Connections to social services supports
• Recommendations for transportation improvements
• Business expansion/retention connections
• Recommendations to business for employee retention improvements
• Entrepreneurship training and support
• Tax credits and other financial incentives for employers to hire
• Career development information
• And more….
Expanded Definition

5. #EDbridgeWD
So how did “workforce
development” get started?
And why?

6. #EDbridgeWD
Purpose of Education
Economic
• Basic survival (reading, writing, basic math)
Cultural Understanding
• Cultural appreciation
• Values (why is my culture the way it is)
• Why is the culture of other people the way it is
Social
• Make intelligent decisions as a society
• Uphold democracy
• Involvement with other people (appreciate
individual differences)
• Conform to society
Personal
• Develop Individual talents and aptitudes
• Appreciate learning
Purpose of WF Development
Economic
• Align local business needs with skills in the
workforce
• Learn specific marketable skills
• Facilitate career pathways
• Learn to be innovative, creative, resilient
• Provide for adult basic survival needs
• Financial literacy
• Adult education
• English as a second language (ESL)
• Coping with a disability in the workplace
• Workplace readiness skills
• Connections to childcare, housing,
transportation, addiction counseling,
mental health needs, etc.

7. #EDbridgeWD
Education
Perennialist philosophy
Believing that education should be centered
on the learning of the great ideas of western
civilization
Also teaching:
How to learn
(debate, senses, introspection, etc.)
and
Why to learn
(self-fulfilling, meaning in life, adaptation, etc.)
Workforce development
Essentialist philosophy
Believing that education should be centered
on how one should become a practical
member of society
Also teaching:
Adaptation:
• to modernization
• to local environment
• to social change
Interdisciplinary thinking
• connecting dots

8. #EDbridgeWD
Prior to Civil War: largely perennialist education philosophy
Morrill Acts: 1862 and 1890
Educational Focus: teaching of practical skills in agriculture,
science, military science, and engineering
Public Investment: First time vocational skills/training were
addressed with public tax dollars in this country
Land Grant Universities

9. #EDbridgeWD
In 1913, the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) was created
in response to pressure from organized labor. Its goals, according to
the statute, were to:
History of Workforce Development
“foster, promote and develop the
welfare of wage-earners, to improve
their working conditions, and to
advance their opportunities for
profitable employment.”

10. #EDbridgeWD
New Deal (1933 and 1937): Goal of relief, recovery and reform of the United
States economy during the Great Depression
Initiated a series of programs including:
• Works Progress Administration (WPA) (1935-1942)
• Civil Works Administration (CWA)
• Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Wagner-Peyser Act:
• First public labor exchange service, matching workers with jobs
• National employment system - federal grants to states
New Deal

11. #EDbridgeWD
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
(1935-1942)
• Initial appropriation was for $4.9 billion
• About 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP
• Total spent $13.4 billion
• $210 billion in today’s dollars
• Peak 3.3 million jobs in 1938.
• About 8 million jobs during seven program years

12. #EDbridgeWD
Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 (MDTA): Intended to retrain workers
dislocated by technological advances. Not about poverty…about “structural unemployment” (assumed old
industries would be replaced by “new industries”)
• Became job-training program targeted largely to economically disadvantaged persons
• Service providers funded directly by the federal government
• Replaced in 1973 by CETA
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (EOA): Johnson's War on Poverty.
• Establishment of Community Action Partnership (CAP) agencies, Vista, Job Corps, and Head Start
Community Development Corporations (CDCs): Funding from Office of Economic
Opportunity; Include employment and training programs as part of a strategy to rebuild the economies of
distressed neighborhoods, building the community infrastructure for job-related services.
Manpower Development
&Training Act (MDTA)

13. #EDbridgeWD
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA): Encouraged community-
based trends, and decentralized control of federally sponsored job-training programs
CETA funding: Hybrid block grant program
• Local units of government administer basic training components
• Also included programs for specific targeted groups and for public service
employment
• Became increasingly regulated
• Charges of corruption and mismanagement contributed to Congress's decision to
replace CETA with the JTPA in 1983
Comprehensive Employment
& Training Act (CETA)

14. #EDbridgeWD
Job Training
& Partnership Act (JTPA)
Job Training & Partnership Act (JTPA)
• Focused on low-income people.
• Created a new local governance structure - Private Industry Councils (PICs)
• Eliminated public sector employment, a core element of CETA
USDOL’S Employment & Training Administration (ETA) began giving states
and local areas grants funded by national Employment Service (ES) funding, to
develop and implement “one-stops” for workforce services. This became
foundational in the passage of WIA in 1998 which sunsetted JTPA.

15. #EDbridgeWD
Workforce Investment Act (WIA) - 1998
• Further emphasized "one-stop" approach (array of job-training, education,
and employment services)
• Core, intensive and training services
• At least one “One Stop” in each region (also “affiliates”)
• State and local governments now given authority to tailor content of job-
training programs to meet regional needs
• Core services may be made accessible through the internet.
• Emphasis on youth skill building (not work experience)
• Employer driven boards
Workforce Investment Board (WIA)

16. #EDbridgeWD
Mandatory Partner Services of the One
Stop (defined by WIA)
• Adults
• Dislocated Workers
• Youth
• Adult Education
• Postsecondary Vocational Education
• Vocational Rehabilitation
• Title V of the Older Americans Act
• Trade Adjustment Assistance
• Veterans Employment and Training Programs
• Community Services Block Grant
• Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Unemployment Insurance
• Job Corps
• Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training
Optional Partner Services of the One Stop
(defined by WIA)
• Transportation
• TANF - Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
Other Partners Services that may be
offered (not defined by WIA)
• Temporary employment services/Day labor
services
• Volunteer matching services
• Counseling Services
• Youth Services (aging out of foster care,
adjudicated, other)
• Re-entry services
• Other as deemed important by the WIB
Partners in the One-Stop System

17. #EDbridgeWD
• Establishes Local and State WIBs
• Establishes One Stop Delivery service region
• Establishes Youth development services
• Jobseeker Funding Streams
• Adult (impoverished/low skill)
• Dislocated workers (jobs have been eliminated)
• Youth (ages 14-21) (30% for out of school youth)
WIA Title I

18. #EDbridgeWD
Jobseekers
• Service Delivery for Jobseekers (previous slide)
Employers
Service Delivery for Employers:
• Business services representatives: Typically “selling” OJT,
customized training, tax credits, etc.
• WIB: Typically looking for employers to fill quota on their board
(research and policy)
• Employment services: screening candidates, onsite interviewing,
assistance with job postings, LMI , apprenticeship, compliance
assistance
Two Customers

19. #EDbridgeWD
Adult and Dislocated Worker
• entered employment
• employment retention
• average earnings
Common Measures
Youth
• employment or education
• degree or certificate
• literacy/numeracy gains

20. #EDbridgeWD

21. #EDbridgeWD
• 15% off the top for
discretionary use
• 25% of dislocated
worker funds for
Rapid Response
activities
Funding
Stream

22. #EDbridgeWD
Local workforce investment areas can be a city or a piece of a city, as in the case of Los Angeles, a
county or part of a county, with the major city serving as its own local area as in the case of Newark,
NJ and Essex County, NJ), multiple counties, or a single state (as in the case of New Hampshire).
Workforce Minimum board is 32 members (based on required members and keeping board membership
51% private sector). Board members appointed by “CLEO” entity.
CLEO holds purse strings
CLEO supposed to provide direction and insight for broader economic development goals
Develop plans, selects providers, oversee service delivery, negotiate performance measures, and assist
the governor with the development of a statewide employment statistics system. (requirement outlined in
WIA Title III, the Wagner‐Peyser Act).
Two functions different than state WIB:
1. “employer linkages,” coordinating WIA‐funded activities with economic development
strategies
2. “connecting, brokering, and coaching,” promoting the participation of private employers in
the public workforce system.
Local WIBs

23. #EDbridgeWD
Governor is “CLEO”
Responsible for the development of a state WIA plan (or the unified plan, if
the state opts to complete one)
“Development and continuous improvement of the statewide system of
activities” described in WIA Title I.
Accountable for designating local workforce investment areas, monitoring
WIA performance, distributing funds reserved for statewide activities, and
other related activities.
State WIBs

24. #EDbridgeWD
Title II
Adult Education
Authorizes the Adult Education and Literacy Act
Administered by the United States Department of Education through grants to states.
Purpose of the act is “to create a partnership among the federal government , states and
localities to provide, on a voluntary basis, adult education and literacy services in order to:
1. Assist adults to become literate and obtain the knowledge and skills necessary for
employment and self sufficiency
2. Assist adults who are parents to obtain the educational skills necessary to become full
partners in the educational development of their children
3. And assist adults in the completion of a secondary school education

25. #EDbridgeWD
Title III
Wagner Peyser
Workforce Investment‐Related Activities –amends the Wagner‐Peyser Act of 1933,
administered through the US Department of Labor Employment & Training
Administration.
Wagner‐Peyser is a state administered labor‐exchange program whose services
were delivered through a network of unemployment offices until WIA.
Now a major partner of One Stop Centers.
Usually civil servants

26. #EDbridgeWD
Title IV
Vocational Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation Act Amendment of 1998: to create linkage between State vocational
rehabilitation programs and workforce investment activities carried out under Title I
of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.
Administered by the US Department of Education through states.

27. #EDbridgeWD
• WIA Title 1
• Wagner-Peyser
• Adult Education and Literacy
• Older Americans
• Vocational Rehabilitation
• NAFTA-Trade adjustment
• Perkins
• Veteran’s employment and
training
• Community Services Block Grant
• HUD employment and Training
• Unemployment Insurance compensation
• TANF
• Food Stamp
• National and Community Services Act
Programs
• Other org as determined necessary by state
WIB
General Provisions: encourages states to develop and submit state
unified plan that includes the 15 federal programs listed in WIA
Title V

28. #EDbridgeWD
• Too Little funding: 1979 peak funding. In real dollars, funding has
dropped by 70 %! (12% drop between 2000-2007)
• Shift away from Developing Human capital: emphasis on
“work first” …with training as a last resort…over time has caused deterioration
of workforce skills in the marketplace at a time when even more skills are
needed due to burgeoning technologies
• Smaller share of low-skilled, low income and youth being
provided training
Major Problems with WIA

29. #EDbridgeWD
• Not coordinated with economic development
• Social service mentality, not proactive in supporting business
• Grant driven…chasing dollars. Change strategies with new funding opportunities.
• Lack alignment (local, regional, state, federal) of strategic planning priorities
• Changing priorities with new administrations
• Boards too big and ineffective
• Silos of service – not leveraging resources and collaborating as needed
• Training that does not result in employment
• Reactive not proactive (too tied up with red tape)
• Best practices not widely shared, little to no training for WIBs other than legislation rules
• Not supportive of entrepreneurship
• Civil servants not “motivated”
• Need more OJT and apprenticeship
Other Problems with WIA

30. #EDbridgeWD
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA funds): attempt to put people back to work and save
jobs
Comparison to WPA program:
WPA program – $210 billion (in today’s dollars) and 8 million people employed
Population in US is 2.5 times the size of population in 1938, therefore, equivalent investment to WPA program
would have been about $525 billion (ARRA cost $831 billion)
6.8 million jobs created during two years of the ARRA program (2010-2012)
Economic Policy Institute (2012): “ (To create a sustained recovery) - Guaranteeing a return to full employment by
the end of 2015 would require policymakers to fund economic stimulus somewhere in the range of $1.5 trillion
to $2.2 trillion over the next three years.”
Why is ARRA seen as a failure and WPA seen as huge success?
WPA – large demand for labor in 1942 for WWII activities
Survey of businesses that received ARRA grants/contracts:
• Only 23% of 8,381 companies surveyed who hired new workers to complete their stimulus project, kept all of
them once the project was done.
• More than seven out of 10 companies did not hire workers at all or had to lay off the workers they did hire.
~(2013 Reason Foundation)
American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

31. #EDbridgeWD
Workforce
Development:
Coordination of skills
development initiatives that
prepare individuals for current
and future occupations, giving
businesses the human capital
necessary to meet demand.
Economic
Development:
Implementation of business
development and quality of
life policies that influence the
growth and restructuring of a
region to improve its overall
economic well-being.
Definitions

32. #EDbridgeWD
Workforce Development
1. Job Development (who has jobs)
2. Collaborative
3. Federally funded
4. Attempts to be a system
5. Employer services related to acquiring
employees (job postings, screening, OJT, etc.)
6. Jobseeker services (Eligibility/Resumes)
7. Coordination of education providers
8. Youth Support
9. Coordination of social services supports
10. Holistic support system
Economic Development
1. Job Creation (make jobs)
2. Compete locally/regionally
3. Locally and state funded
4. Not a system
5. Business recruitment/retention services such
as Tax Incentives, Location Hunting
6. Infrastructure/transportation support
7. Business development support
8. Community Development support
9. Bottom-Line $$$
10. Quality of Life (e.g.. Parks)
Comparison

33. #EDbridgeWD
1. Evaluate local economic/workforce strengths and weaknesses.
2. Evaluate community’s place in the broader regional economy.
3. Evaluate community’s economic development and workforce development vision and goals.
4. Evaluate community’s strategy to attain its goals.
5. Evaluate connections between economic development, workforce development and other local
policies.
6. Evaluate the regulatory environment.
7. Evaluate local economic development and workforce stakeholders and partners.
8. Evaluate the needs of your local business community.
9. Help create an environment that supports the start-up, growth and expansion of local businesses.
10. Evaluate community’s economic development and workforce development message.
Inspired by a report from National League of Cities and IEDC: “The Role of Local Elected Officials in Economic Development.
10 things you should know.”
Ten Steps to Aligning Workforce Development and
Economic Development

34. #EDbridgeWD
Finding the Synergies
Prioritizing most important asset:
WORKFORCE
• Career awareness through education
• Lifelong career planning/pathways
• Lifelong preparation and training
• Retention (of businesses and talent)
• Succession planning
Also:
• Sector Strategies
• Cluster strategies
• Employer outreach
• Goal setting
• Marketing
• Grant writing
• CEDS planning
• Entrepreneurship Support
• Community volunteering
activities

35. #EDbridgeWD
How
Camoin
Helps
Provides
research
services to
guide decision-
making
Facilitates goal-
setting
Develops
Action Plans
Evaluates
progress
Convenes the
right parties at
the right times

36. #EDbridgeWD
Presentation by:
Colleen LaRose
Workforce Development Specialist | Camoin Associates
President and CEO | North East Regional Employment & Training Assoc.
For questions, please contact:
Colleen LaRose
E-mail: colleen@nereta.org
Phone: 908-995-7718
Website: www.nereta.org
Twitter: @neretaorg
For information about Camoin Associates:
Visit our blog! Information about upcoming
webinars: http://www.camoinassociates.com/blog/
Visit our website: www.camoinassociates.com
Follow us on Twitter: @camoinassociate
Find us on Facebook