High Growth Job Training Initiative

This initiative is a strategic effort to prepare workers to take advantage of new and increasing job opportunities in high growth, high demand and economically vital sectors of the American economy. Fields like health care, information technology, and advanced manufacturing have jobs and solid career paths left untaken due to a lack of people qualified to fill them. The High Growth Job Training Initiative targets worker training and career development resources toward helping workers gain the skills they need to build successful careers in these and other growing industries.

Expanding and aligning current and new STEM workforce education and training strategies, activities, and resources. Click here to learn more.

The Aging Worker Initiative (AWI) seeks to expand the workforce investment system’s understanding about how to best serve the older worker population and develop models to share with all local workforce investment areas. Click here to learn more.

To put this approach into action, the High Growth Job Training Initiative identified 14 sectors that fit within the following criteria:

(1) they are projected to add substantial numbers of new jobs to the economy or affect the growth of other industries; or

(2) they are existing or emerging businesses being transformed by technology and innovation requiring new skills sets for workers.

The sectors include:

Advanced Manufacturing	Geospatial Technology
Aerospace	Health Care
Automotive	Hospitality
Biotechnology	Information Technology
Construction	Retail
Energy	Transportation
Financial Services

In addition to numerous industry specific solutions, ETA identified a core set of priority solution elements that are common to all 14 target industries. These elements include:

• Developing a pipeline of young workers;
• Building competency models, career ladders, and career lattices for new and incumbent workers;
• Expanding postsecondary training alternatives including apprenticeships and community colleges’ workforce development programs;
• Accessing new and/or untapped labor pools;
• Transitioning workers from declining industries;
• Developing strategies for retaining incumbent workers and updating their skills; and
• Engaging small businesses.
  

The High Growth Job Training Initiative is investing in national models and demonstrations of workforce solutions in these sectors designed to achieve the following outcomes:

• Targeted investment of workforce development resources and support for private and public sector partnerships to ensure the development of workers' skills in demand occupations based on industry need.
• Increased integration of community and technical college efforts with business and the public workforce system activities to meet the skills training needs of high growth industries.
• Increased opportunities for employers to use apprenticeship training as skills development methodology, combining on-the-job training and academics, to ensure a pipeline of skilled workers.
• Providing workers with paths to career enhancing opportunities in high growth occupations.
• Providing workers with paths to career enhancing opportunities in high growth occupations.