A Unified State Plan For New Jerseys Workforce Readiness System

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With the United States' choice for future employment being "high skills or low wages," the challenge to business and industry is to build, in partnership with public agencies, a cohesive management system that would invest in three critical areas of the work force: building a strong foundation of basic skills to help noncollege-bound youth enter the work force; providing continuing education and training for workers; and building a better "second chance" training and education system for working-age youth and adults who face special barriers to employment. To meet this challenge, the National Alliance of Business (NAB) proposes that business and government in each state and local community develop a "work force investment system" that links existing training and education institutions in an effective partnership to build a highly skilled, high performance labor force. If such a system is to be real and permanent, it should be built on guiding principles such as ease of access, broad inclusiveness, public-private partnership, market base, and concerted action at the national, state, and local levels. A proposed work force investment system model for the future couples delivery system reform with a broader role in the labor market for that system. Such a system would be characterized by a common point or points of intake, individualized assessment of clients to determine their service needs, a form of case management to see participants through the system, and a common system of placement that employers could readily access. Present federal and federal-state programs could be integrated into such a program, and local businesses would take the initiative to structure local solutions to problems confronting the mainstream work force. This model is appropriate and could be attainable for the U.S. labor market. (This report describes several state work force investment systems and local programs as well as the Training and Enterprise Councils system in Great Britain.) (KC)

This volume examines WIA objectives and the evidence on program performance and impact.