Career Clusters

Seedco published an interesting report last month called A Tale of Two Systems: Linking Economic Development and Workforce Development. Promoting collaboration among economic development, workforce training, and education has been a cause du jour for some time, and I'm glad to see researchers weighing in with case studies of actual projects. Hopefully one day somebody will take a look at what's going on in Texas.

We tackle this challenge in a slightly different way. In addition to running committees that involve people from economic development, workforce development, and education, one of CAPCOG's primary roles is to create information--data sets, maps, presentations, this blog--that provide opportunities for collaboration. For example, we've partnered with Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area to provide labor market information tied to Career Clusters, which form the basis of career and technical education programs in secondary schools. Here's a table showing the 16 federally-defined Career Clusters and the job outlook for the Capital Area between 2009 and 2014. Click on the image for a larger version (source: EMSI).



School districts can use this information in several ways: (1) to prioritize career and technical education course offerings based on regional labor market trends (e.g., which Career Clusters give our students the greatest opportunity to find a well-paying job in a growing field?); (2) to emphasize the connection between secondary education and workforce availability (which can be very helpful for encouraging businesses to offer internships, job shadowing, etc.; and (3) to help students understand career options after high school, regardless of whether or not they decide to pursue postsecondary education immediately.

Brian Kelsey