Leveraging Local Workforce Systems to Better Serve Workers and Improve Job Quality: A Case Study and Complex Systems Analysis

The transforming landscape of education and employment in the United States makes it more difficult for workers to maintain living wage jobs with benefits, threatening their livelihood and future employment prospects as previous skills become obsolete. Employers are also struggling to hire and retain skilled workers. Regardless of long-term impacts on the labor force, workforce disruptions will continue as industries add, remove, or change occupational roles to adapt to evolving economic conditions. Caused by complex macro-level influences (such as globalization, emerging technologies, inequitable access to critical resources, and the COVID-19 pandemic), the historical paradigm of education and training leading to job skills needs rethinking. Local Workforce Systems are complex systems of training organizations, employers, local government, adjacent nonprofits, and other stakeholders. These entities work to help people develop skills to prepare for employment, promote improved workforce conditions, and ensure that local workforce needs are met. These multifaceted systems can be a powerful tool to alleviate the disruption experienced by displaced workers, but the efficacy of workforce systems (and the qualities that make them effective) are poorly understood. Communities are impacted by macro-influences in dynamic, unique ways, and must be investigated in their local context. While individual components of workforce systems have been well studied (such as the impact of specific training interventions on workforce outcomes), there have not yet been detailed explorations of how the different elements interact in a systems-level, place-based way. In my dissertation, I investigated local workforce systems through a qualitative case study and a complexity-informed approach to determine how to best measure their effectiveness and improve their functionality in local settings. Local workforce systems are generally well equipped and situated to provide resources and support for low-skill and low-wage workers. However, services are fragmented; stakeholders with multiple priorities lack coordination and access to actionable data. Improved partnerships between stakeholders, a renewed emphasis on utilizing data for decision-making, and a reorientation of resources towards nontraditional students and workers will enhance the ability of Local Workforce Systems to foster better workforce outcomes and improve job quality. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]