As a Liberal Arts major, data has not always computed for me. Like many others, I’ve been more comfortable using narrative to tell the tale. But, as I grow in my career, I’m realizing the necessity of using data to mark where we are, where we have been, and where we are going.
Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie A. Su recently spoke about the importance of data at the Good Jobs Summit (hosted in partnership with the Family and Workers Fund) earlier this summer:
““Everything we want for workers is impossible without it (data). We’ve all heard what gets measured gets done… sometimes things we don’t measure obscures our shortcomings and our failures and things we’re not delivering on…What we measure is so important… and that includes job quality.””
So, with the importance of data on my mind, I went to our in-house labor market data expert, Sarah Ehresman, to get her take on how the data looks around a few of our workforce priorities.
Mike: good morning Sarah, I was wondering what your thoughts are on the historical funding of workforce development as it relates to job quality and racial equity.
Sarah: Good morning Mike! Sure… Current workforce policy as prescribed by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) emphasizes the needs of employers and the total number of job placements of participants, not necessarily the quality of those jobs. WIOA promotes the idea of “individualism” and assumes the economy operates in a race-neutral context. As a result, systemic inequities persist and economic mobility of participants is limited.
Mike: So, how has that played out at a more local level?
Sarah: State and local workforce boards have an opportunity to gather various data elements on job placements that indicate some level of job quality. However, workforce boards are only held accountable for the overall median earnings of participants across all racial groups, even if outcomes are unequal for different racial groups.
Mike: So, what do some of the data points around that look like?
Sarah: An analysis of WIOA performance data shows that Black individuals are over-represented in WIOA-funded services, accounting for 35% of WIOA participants between April 2019 and March 2020, despite making up only 13% of the nation’s labor force. Upon exiting the workforce system, Black participants had the highest employment rates across racial groups, but had the lowest earnings, reinforcing economic disadvantage among Black workers. Check out this chart.
Mike: Is KentuckianaWorks tracking how that looks in our region?
Sarah: KentuckianaWorks has begun tracking the performance of its programs by race and other demographic characteristics on a publicly available dashboard. Measuring outcomes disaggregated by different populations will help us improve “what gets done.” It is imperative this job quality measurement initiative is incorporated into the nation’s workforce policies.
Mike: Sarah, that has been extremely helpful. Thanks so much for your time!
Sarah: Of course, no problem!
With guidance and funding from the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, KentuckianaWorks is exploring ways to expand how we track and measure the quality of jobs and racial equity and continues to deeply explore this with our employer partners in the Redesigned Jobs; Resilient Works grant project.
Here are a few more relevant data tools:
Mike Karman is the Sector Strategies Coordinator at KentuckianaWorks and Sarah Ehresman is the Director of Labor Market Intelligence.
