Workforce development

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Workforce development AleWorkforceDevelopment

See also examples of workforce development programs

(See Ronald L. Jacobs' definition in his paper "Understanding Workforce Development: Definition, Conceptual Boundaries, and Future Perspectives"

"...the coordination of school, company, and governmental policies and programs such that as a collective they enable individuals the opportunity to realize a sustainable livelihood and organizations to achieve exemplary goals, consistent with the history, culture, and goals of the societal context." )

[Jacobs goes into more detail below:]

"Workforce development has emerged to describe a relatively wide range of activities, policies, and programs. For example, many professionals involved in administering secondary vocational education programs, welfare-to-work and other public assistance programs, and regional economic development initiatives now use workforce development to describe their services. Several recent pieces of state and federal legislation use the term to describe various youth vocational training, adult training and retraining, and related employment initiatives. As a result of these legislative and policy changes, many states…have included the term in the naming of various governmental coordinating boards, initiatives, and task forces (Grubb and Associates, 1999). The term also describes an extensive array of training and educational programs available to state of Ohio bargaining unit employees (Jacobs, Skillings, & Yu, 2001). Previously, such joint employer-union supported learning opportunities might have been viewed as an employee benefit. Finally, perhaps in response to these other changes, several graduate programs— including our own at Ohio State University—now use workforce development instead of vocational-technical education as part of their program’s name. Not surprisingly, there are fundamental differences when interpreting the meaning of workforce development. One view is that the term merely describes how one prepares to enter an occupation. That is, workforce development becomes a proxy for career and technical education. An alternative view is that the term harkens us to consider a different perspective on working and learning, broadly speaking. That is, the term signals a growing awareness that previous conceptualizations in this area are inadequate to address emerging challenges. Programs that might occur in schools, organizations, or agencies are, in fact, mutually dependent on each other when considered from a broader societal perspective."

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