by and
Systemic barriers such as discrimination, lower pay, and lack of quality job opportunities have created a labor market that is unresponsive to the needs of Black workers. The annual Black unemployment rate averaged 11.6% from 1972 to 2022. In 2023, it was 5.5%, a record-low rate. Black workers are still underrepresented in high-paying fields, such as information technology and financial services, but overrepresented in lower-paying healthcare support positions.
Emerging industries, such as offshore wind, clean energy, and semiconductor manufacturing, offer promising opportunities for Black workers to access high-quality jobs and training programs to address these workforce gaps. Industry Sector Partnership Programs, a workforce development strategy that requires collaboration among employers, training providers, and workers, are a promising tool to meet the needs of those in the labor market. As such, policymakers, business leaders and community advocates have a role in elevating this strategy.
Industry sector partnerships are a required workforce strategy in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA), the law governing our nation’s federal workforce system, and is due for reauthorization. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Good Jobs Challenge also invested $500 million into sector partnerships. This workforce strategy is gaining momentum, and given its history, it can play a helpful role in tackling economic and workforce disparities. Ninety-three percent of Black voters believe there needs to be a closer partnership between training providers and businesses to train people for the jobs businesses are hiring for, and 92% of Black voters support the need to expand training opportunities with earn-and-learn models such as apprenticeships.
Industry sector partnerships were initially connected to the Civil Rights Movement. FOCUS: Hope in Detroit, for example, began as a civil rights organization in 1968 to combat poverty and racial injustice. In 1981, FOCUS: Hope opened its Machinist Training Institute (MTI). to train low-income Black men in precision machining and metalworking skills, a predominantly white occupation. MTI partnered with local firms to employ program graduates and with local universities to design manufacturing engineering curricula.
The racial workforce gaps that led to the creation of sector partnership programs still exist today in our public workforce system. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the National Skills Coalition are committed to eradicating these gaps and have researched to explore solutions using sector partnership programs. The Joint Center conducted a six-state legislative analysis of sector partnership programs and found that most states did not require programs to collect data on outcomes like retention and completion according to participants’ race. Without these data, it’s hard to know which programs serve Black workers and trainees equitably and which need improvement. The National Skills Coalition’s recent brief centered the voices of practitioners, policymakers, businesses, and workers who called for Congress and governors to invest in the governance, convening, and measuring of sector partnerships through the creation of a 21st Century Sector Partnership Grant Program that develops a national network of high performing industry sector partnerships and implements career pathways which improve workforce equity and job quality.
It will take all of us to move equity-centered sector partnerships forward. Policymakers should be informed and educated to invest in high-quality programs through dedicated funding for ISPs, understand the need to enhance supportive services and employer benefits, and create explicit partnerships with Black-led and worker-led organizations. Business leaders should commit to recruiting, hiring, and retaining diverse talent and be committed partners through convening, designing, and implementing sector activities. Community advocates can elevate worker and student voices in the community and be partners in program design.
The potential reauthorization of WIOA should include new sector partnership requirements that increase access, engagement, and funding. Increased access to training is crucial in creating career pathways in emerging industries. Employer engagement can align Black workers with training and available regional jobs. Sector partnership dedicated funding can create robust labor market research, employer outreach, industry-specific career pathways, supportive services, and technical assistance. The opportunity to bridge the racial workforce gap through industry sector partnerships must be embraced in the coming year to advance Black workers’ economic mobility and enhanced job quality.
Justin Nalley is a policy analyst for the Joint Center. Nakeisha Ricks-Pettyjohn is a senior fellow at the National Skills Coalition.
