Chevy Chase, MD:Millions of American breadwinners work hard to support their families. But, despite their determination and effort, many are mired in low-wage jobs that provide inadequate benefits and offer few opportunities for advancement. In fact, nearly one in three American working families now earn wages so low that they have difficulty surviving financially.

Although employers are still recovering from the great recession, they remain in need of skilled workers to be competitive.  Lower-wage workers could fill many of these jobs if they could access training that facilitates advancement.  However, many low-wage workers lack the basic skills, time,and resources needed to take advantage of training opportunities.

A new report by the Working Poor Families Project explores workplace education as a promising approach. Click here for a downloadable copy of the report.  These strategies are designed to build incumbent workers' basic reading, writing, math, or English language skills and is often connected to the actual job skills needed by the employers and/or unions who sponsor them.  

Launched in 2002 and currently supported by the Annie E. Casey, Ford, Joyce, and Mott foundations, the Working Poor Families Project is a national initiative that works to improve these economic conditions. The project partners with state nonprofit organizations and supports their policy efforts to better prepare America's working families for a more secure economic future.

Lancaster:  Once again, this year, the Youth Council of the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board will sponsor a Youth Career Summit for educators, superintendents, employers, community based organizations, career development staff, counselors, principals and other interested individuals.  The 8th Annual Summit will be held on Thursday, January 12, 2012 at the PA CareerLink of Lancaster County, 1016 N. Charlotte St. in Lancaster in the auditorium of Liberty Place.

As usual, the 2012 Youth Career Summit will feature information about the local labor market, new profiles of Career Pathways for Lancaster County, best practices and resources from peer educators,  and guidance on connecting work-ready youth to PA CareerLink programming.

There is no cost to attend the event which includes breakfast (with the exception of the Act 48 credit cost), but registration is required by January 5, 2012.  Click here to download a registration form.  Register by fax (717) 735-0335 or email this completed form to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For more information call Andrew Garner at 717-735-0333.

New York (Fox News, November 27, 2011):  Fox News features the stories of two formerly incarcerated persons who now have productive jobs in their communities.  The story mentions the importance of employment in reducing recidivism.  Click here to watch the clip.

Currently, the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board is working with Water Street Ministries, ASSETS, Tabor Community Services, the Transitional Living Center, Justice and Mercy, and the PA CareerLink to develop a variety of social enterprises that will provide transitional jobs for ex-offenders, homeless people, folks who have lost their unemployment benefits, and others.  These jobs which will last up to six months help people with limited work experience to establish themselves in a meaningful job and build a resume of experience that can lead to unsubsidized employment.

Washington, DC: At a time of increasing demand for qualified workers and high unemployment, stronger linkage at the local level between workforce development and economic development efforts is much needed. While employers struggle to fill some jobs with qualified workers, millions of unemployed Americans are struggling to support themselves and their families.

So in today's economy, jobs not only need to be created, but efforts must be made to ensure that workers have the necessary education and skills to compete for jobs. This would result in more effective workers and more competitive American businesses.

How can we better link and support workforce and economic development activities and investments at the local level so increasingly scarce public resources are deployed most effectively?

This issue of Update from the Workforce Strategies Initiative of the Aspen Institute addresses the critical question of integrating workforce development and economic development investments.   For a downloadable copy of the report, click here. 

Washington, DC:  In this report from McKinsey Global, the author suggests that digitization is creating a second economy that's vast, automatic, and invisible—thereby bringing the biggest change since the Industrial Revolution.  Click here for a downloadable copy of the report.

In 1850, a decade before the Civil War, the United States' economy was small—it wasn't much bigger than Italy's. Forty years later, it was the largest economy in the world. What happened in between was the railroads. They linked the east of the country to the west, and the interior to both. They gave access to the east's industrial goods; they made possible economies of scale; they stimulated steel and manufacturing—and the economy was never the same.

Deep changes like this are not unusual. Every so often—every 60 years or so—a body of technology comes along and over several decades, quietly, almost unnoticeably, transforms the economy: it brings new social classes to the fore and creates a different world for business. Can such a transformation—deep and slow and silent—be happening today?

Washington, DC:  This paper investigates the strength of innovation-driven employment growth, the role of competition in stimulating and facilitating it, and whether it is inclusive. For a downloadable copy of the paper, click here.

In a sample of more than 26,000 manufacturing establishments across 71 countries (both OECD and developing), the authors find that firms that innovate in products or processes, or that have attained higher total factor productivity, exhibit higher employment growth than non-innovative firms. The strength of firms' innovation-driven employment growth is significantly positively associated with the share of the firms' workforce that is unskilled, debunking the conventional wisdom that innovation-driven growth is not inclusive in that it is focused on jobs characterized by higher levels of qualification.