The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nation’s workforce represents something new and troubling, says Suzanne Hultin of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“Unlike previous recessions where job losses were concentrated among white men in manufacturing and construction,” Hultin says in an interview, “the COVID-19 recession has affected women, people of color, and young people who were employed in a variety of industries that had escaped job loss in the past.”
Unlike affluent areas of California, we cannot expect physicians from other parts of the state or country to move here and set up practices. Areas where Latinos and African Americans live must grow local talent.
Hultin is the program director of the employment, labor, and retirement program of the Denver-based group. She has seen how the pandemic has created new pressures and opportunities at the state level, which many state and local officials are seeking to address.
“The COVID-19 recession has had a profound impact on the states,” she says, citing its sudden impact and the wide-ranging effects it has had on tax revenues, which affect the states’ ability to meet the increased need for public services, such as health care and education.
At the end of April, nearly ten million U.S. workers were still unemployed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. And forty-eight states had fewer payroll jobs than they did in February 2020, when the pandemic began, noted the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire in a recent report.
California state Senator Melissa Hurtado visits an emergency medical care site in the underserved Central Valley. Hurtado has introduced legislation that would encourage more local residents to go to college and stay to work as medical professionals in the region.
As a result of these historic job losses, Hultin says, states are examining every aspect of their economies. They want to better prepare workers for high-growth fields, which will enable them to compete in the global marketplace. States are also investing in workplace training that will jumpstart employment in traditional sectors like manufacturing and food production.
Lawmakers in many states have introduced bills to enable people of color and others who have historically been underrepresented in job training to qualify for positions in expanding sectors of their economies.
A bill proposed in New Jersey would give ethnic minorities, women, and veterans priority in accessing a new training program for long-term care workers. The state is also considering legislation to require that subcontractors working on public improvement contracts make “good-faith efforts” to encourage minorities, women, and service-disabled veterans to become apprentices.
And Maryland’s proposed Coal Community Transition Act would support the state’s transition away from fossil fuels toward clean energy. Half of the fund would be allocated to worker-training programs, including a variety of apprenticeships at historically Black colleges and universities.
In California, state Senator Melissa Hurtado has introduced legislation that would boost job creation on two fronts: making low-wage areas more attractive to high-growth industries, and providing educational opportunities to help people of color become well-paid professionals.
Low wages, poverty, and unemployment have plagued Hurtado’s district in California’s Central Valley, the heart of the state’s agriculture industry, for decades. As she sees it, COVID-19 was a wake-up call because it underscored the dangers of a health care system where residents—mostly Latinx—must travel long distances to receive even substandard health care.
“The Valley had some of the highest death rates in the country,” Hurtado says in a phone interview. “Many people were left too ill to work or care for their families.”
The program is successful because when companies have skin in the game, they create optimum training programs.
As part of her efforts, Hurtado is working to address imbalances in terms of where physicians are located, which can make a difference in determining where companies that provide livable wages and support community development will locate. In December, she introduced the California Dream to Medical School Act, which would establish a pre-med pipeline for community college students from underserved communities who want to attend medical schools in California. The bill passed in the state senate in May on a vote of 37 to 1.
“Unlike affluent areas of California, we cannot expect physicians from other parts of the state or country to move here and set up practices,” Hurtado says. “Areas where Latinos and African Americans live must grow local talent.”
In 2018, only about 6 percent of the nation’s physicians were Latinx and another 5 percent were Black or African American, the Association of American Medical Colleges reports. Hurtado’s proposed five-year pilot program would establish four regional hubs, including one in the Central Valley, to ensure that students from underserved areas would have the courses, internships, and other resources they need. Each hub would include three community colleges, a four-year undergraduate institution, a public or nonprofit medical school, and three local community organizations.
“Like me, many of the fifty students who would be selected each year would probably be the first members of their family to attend college,” says Hurtado. “Although many of these young people want to help their communities, they often lack the opportunity and encouragement to undertake the long, expensive, and daunting training required to become physicians.”
More than two-thirds of Latinx students in California enroll in community colleges, so it makes good sense to use these institutions as a launching pad, explains Hurtado. Moreover, research has shown that students who attend community colleges are more likely to become family physicians.
“If the bill fails in 2021, I will introduce it again,” Hurtado says. “If existing trends in recruitment and training persist, it will take the state five centuries to achieve parity of Latino physicians with non-Hispanic white physicians.”
Despite health risks during the pandemic, farmworkers in states across the country have continued to work long hours to ensure that grocery stores are stocked with items like fruit, milk, and vegetables. For the first time, many consumers became aware of the vital role that these essential workers play in the food industry. Now, in response, the state of Michigan is including farmworkers in its workplace development plans.
“Michigan is the second most diverse agricultural industry in the United States after California, producing about 300 commodities,” says Hector Arroyo Jr., state administrative manager of the Michigan Agriculture and Food Systems Workforce Advancement Initiative. “In addition to contributing more than $100 billion a year in revenue and employing 17 percent of Michigan’s workers, the industry exports one-third of its products, which are critical to the state’s growth.”
Automation, Arroyo says in a phone interview, is transforming the industry. To avoid being left behind, farmworkers must be familiar with technology from tractors to sophisticated data systems used in planting, weeding, and harvesting. Some farms are even employing drones and other high-tech tools.
In May, Michigan received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop technical education and career pathways for migrant and seasonal farmworkers. The state is recruiting employers and training organizations to provide short-term courses to develop technical competence, knowledge of safety regulations, and communication skills. About twenty-five to fifty individuals will complete the training each year.
“Many farmworkers were born in Mexico, Central America, and Burma, and are eager to achieve the American Dream,” Arroyo says. “We anticipate that some will go on to earn associate or even bachelor’s degrees, which will enable them to move up in the industry.”
The rising cost of college education, the burgeoning education loan debt, and the difficulty many college graduates have experienced in finding jobs during recessions has discouraged some young people, especially those of color and from low-income families, from pursuing college degrees.
In 2017, the Minnesota legislature recognized this trend and established the Youth Skills Training Program to prepare high school students for jobs in high-growth, high-demand occupations.
In February, Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, announced grants to eleven partnerships of schools, employers, and in some cases nonprofit organizations to provide hands-on training and real-world experience for careers in information technology, health care, agriculture, and automotive and advanced manufacturing. More than thirty school districts and eighty employers will benefit from the $1 million in funding.
“The program has been successful because it helps students identify their interests in elementary school and complete courses in high school that develop skills employers have identified as necessary for success in the occupation,” says Rich Wessels, project coordinator. “Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds receive paid industry training and credentials that enable them to land jobs after graduation.”
Since 2018, about 19,000 young people have participated in company visits, summer camps where they design products, and mentoring sessions with leaders in the fields, Wessels says. These experiences are crucial for young people who live in areas with a limited number of jobs that don’t offer opportunities to move up.
“Another 23,000 high school students have taken at least one class related to a particular industry,” he says. And more than 600 “have earned an industry-recognized credential that enables them to be hired after graduation.”
Employers give the program high marks, Wessels notes, because it helps them fill positions where there have been serious shortages, such as for nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses in Minnesota’s booming health care industry.
For 200 years, manufacturing has been at the heart of Connecticut’s economy, creating jobs in the aerospace, chemicals, and fabricated metal products sectors. In 2018 alone, manufacturers contributed $30.7 billion, 11.2 percent of the Connecticut economy, including about $16 billion in exports. In 2020, the state’s almost 4,000 manufacturers employed 161,000 workers who earned an average of $47 an hour.
“The pandemic was a serious blow to the manufacturing sector,” says Colin Cooper, the state’s chief manufacturing officer. “Production plummeted, creating a new urgency to maintain Connecticut’s competitive edge in the global economy by capitalizing on fast-growth opportunities in aerospace, biotechnology, and clean energy.”
In October, the Governor’s Workforce Council released a report predicting that the manufacturing industry would incur a deficit of 3,000 new workers per year in the post-COVID-19 economy. To fill these positions, the twenty-four-member, business-led council called for increasing manufacturing slots in technical and comprehensive high schools and community colleges as well as pipeline programs.
It also recommended the expansion of the Manufacturing Innovation Fund, which was established by the legislature in 2014 to help companies that were having difficulty recruiting young people to take the place of veteran workers with advanced skills who were retiring.
The $75 million fund provides two-year grants of up to $50,000 to companies to train workers in industry-specific skills, communication techniques, or scientific and mathematical concepts required for specific jobs. Every dollar provided by the state is matched by the companies.
“The program is successful because when companies have skin in the game, they create optimum training programs,” Cooper says. “About 25,000 workers have been trained, 18,000 jobs created or refigured, and 2,000 manufacturers have participated.”
Cooper predicts that state and local governments and manufacturing companies will do more to expand recruitment and training of highly motivated workers from low-income areas because “talent isn’t restricted to particular zip codes.”
Pratt & Whitney, the aerospace giant, worked with the nonprofit Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology to develop a two-month training course in jet engine manufacturing called the “Dream It. Do It. Ambassador Program.” It has thus far prepared seventy-five graduates for jobs that pay $35 an hour, according to Lynn Raicik, the center’s associate director of workforce pipeline programs in East Hartford, Connecticut.
“The program was a winning strategy for the company and the participants,” says Raicik. “The companies were able to recruit candidates who may not have been on their radar years ago. The graduates got a leg up on true careers, so that they didn’t have to work multiple low-income jobs to survive.”