Thanks to the California Association of Economic Developers (CALED) for hosting last week’s webinar on Workforce Development Trends and Incentives!
We enjoyed discussing the latest in workforce incentive programs with our co-presenter, Jordan Fetsch from California’s Employment Training Panel (ETP). For those of you who are not familiar, ETP is a state agency that reimburses the costs for employer-customized job skills training. They do great work – a 2020 study from Brookings found the ETP had positive and significant impacts on incentivized companies.
ETP also offers Healthcare Workforce Advancement Funding to support training and career progression for health and social workers, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training to certify electricians to install EV charging stations, and the Agriculture Initiative to provide training in new technology in agriculture, forestry and fishing industries to prepare workers for ag-tech jobs. You can learn more from their presentation here.
The Smart Incentives presentation described the rapid growth in workforce and training incentive programs across states. Many incentives support workforce training and recruitment for companies creating new jobs, but a significant percentage fund skills training for workers who already have jobs and others strive to bring new people into the workforce.
Workforce incentives can be perceived more positively than other types of business incentives because they have an invest-in-yourself aspect. They are expected to help individuals in the community, as well as businesses, and help create a stronger and more competitive economic environment.
Workforce incentives are likely to remain popular because they address the #1 business need – talent. As long as workforce and talent remain a top priority, I think we will continue to see growth and innovation in this category of incentives.
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