Workforce Development
Policy Paper
Draft May 2005
Definition:
Workforce Development - Includes efforts to utilize federal transportation programs such as Jobs Access Reverse Commute (JARC) to provide public transportation to workers to get to their jobs. This also includes efforts to address the need to provide affordable child care, health care, public transportation and housing to enable individuals to get and keep good jobs and meet employers workforce needs.
Best Practices:
Linking Public Transportation and Economic Development
· Good Jobs First (GJF) “Missing the Bus: How States Miss Opportunities to Connect Economic Development to Transit” September 2003
GJF offered three policy options based on the findings of the report:
- Location Efficient Incentives - Making development subsidies granted in metro areas “location efficient” by restricting their use to sites that have access to public transit (typically defined as within a quarter mile, and definitely within a half mile, of a regularly served transit stop).
- Subsidy Disclosure - Annual, deal-specific reporting of costs and benefits, including corporate relocation, and whether or not each site is transit-accessible.
- Impact Statements - Is a company’s new location accessible via public transit?
· Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board - Job Access in the Cranberry Area - 2004
Recommendations:
- Employers – raise awareness of the transportation options and resources available to employers and employees and provide them with the appropriate information about existing transportation services and resources that can help individuals get to jobs, job training, education, childcare and other supporting services.
- Transportation Planners, Providers and Policymakers
1) Require more equitable matching between public transit and highway funding enabling better transportation decision-making at local levels.
2) Encourage the application of state transportation money across a more diversified range of programs in order to develop regional transportation strategies that address local job access solutions.
3) Encourage regional transportation planning and some coordination of systems so that people can cross boundaries to get to jobs. Better interconnections are needed among transportation systems if transit-dependent workers are to access jobs that are being developed in hard-to-reach areas.
- Land-use and Economic Development Planners
1) Promote development that links transit, childcare and housing to new development that enables workers to access and keep good jobs.
2) Address workforce issues in comprehensive planning and local land use controls.
3) Create policy to address the “workforce impacts” of economic development projects during the development review process and adopt development review processes that formally address workforce-related impacts.
- Workforce Development Professionals – coordinate delivery systems to better serve regional labor markets.
· Carnegie Mellon University 2004 - “Connecting People and Jobs” (follow-up to previous report)
Recommendations:
- Support fiscal accountability legislation for the state and county that would make the process of granting public subsidies transparent. This legislation could require companies to return portions of subsidies if they do not achieve predetermined results, or offer incentives in the case of superior performance/job creation.
- Strengthen the availability and timeliness of public transit in the Airport Corridor and other growing suburban areas to lessen the costs of commuting that are disproportionately carried by low-paid workers.
Linking Affordable or Workplace Housing and Workforce Development.
· Chicago Metropolis 2020 – Summer 2002 report on a workforce housing action agenda.
Recommendations:
- Growth planning must include planning for the workforce housing needed to meet population growth.
- State government incentives or mandates that will assure that affordable workforce housing will be built in the future.
- Increased federal government investment in programs that spur the availability of affordable housing.
- Corporate support for affordable workforce housing via employer assisted housing programs.
- Corporate effort to expand or locate facilities only in communities that are addressing workforce housing needs.
1. County and local government planning departments and their respective economic development organizations are urged to coordinate with public transportation agencies, Transportation Management Associations (where applicable), workforce development boards and housing agencies to address workforce development needs (affordable child care, health care, housing, and public transportation) at the earliest stage of the economic development review process. These organizations are further urged to develop incentives to locate new developments in proximity to existing workforce, housing, public transportation.
2. SPC, in cooperation with workforce development boards and other appropriate organizations, is urged to identify mechanisms in the development of the Long Range Transportation and Economic Development Plan to coordinate economic development planning and workforce development planning. This would include developing criteria to address workforce development needs per distribution of public funds for locating or relocating companies. SPC is further urged to include in its annual report (see Programming and Policy paper) an analysis that identifies the ability of each subsidy to meet these criteria.
3. SPC, the Counties, local governments and the public transportation agencies are urged to cooperatively develop innovative mechanisms such as Location Efficient Mortgages through partnerships with banks, housing agencies, workforce development boards, etc., that enhance the ability to meet workforce development needs.
4. SPC, the Counties, and public transportation agencies are urged to utilize the 20/20 Transit Vision to develop, in consultation with workforce development boards and other appropriate organizations, alternative routing and services to meet changing workforce needs, e.g., reverse commutes, child care at transit stops.
5. The Commonwealth, SPC, the Counties, and public transportation agencies are urged to consult with workforce development boards and other appropriate organizations, to use public investments in infrastructure and economic development to stimulate community and economic development in existing communities by sustaining a high quality of life and economic opportunity to attract and retain a diverse workforce.