The Workforce Strategies Initiative (WSI), a project of the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute, seeks to identify and advance strategies that help low-income Americans gain ground in today's labor market. WSI’s projects have been designed to evaluate and advance sectoral employment development approaches to connecting low-income workers to both employment and advancement opportunities within targeted industry sectors.

Over the past several decades, complex social and economic factors have redefined the character and conditions of the labor market. The same factors that have increased productivity and put the economy on a record path of expansion and prosperity also have made it more difficult for both employers and workers to navigate the market, secure needed skills and seize opportunities that promote success. While the changing nature of work and business is challenging for everyone, disadvantaged and marginally skilled individuals have been particularly hard-hit.

In the field of workforce development, there is increasing urgency to address this problem and develop strategies that can make an enduring impact on the way that unemployed and underemployed individuals connect with and advance in today's complex labor market. To be effective, emerging solutions to the workforce challenge need to address the problems that confront actors on both sides of the labor market.

Sectoral employment development initiatives help workers find jobs, keep jobs, and improve their jobs, and, at the same time, improve the regional economy by addressing labor market needs in targeted industry sectors. Sector initiatives target a specific industry and region, crafting tailored solutions to systemic labor market issues within the industry, the educational and training system and/or the public policy arena.

To promote better understanding and advancement of the sector approach, the WSI team conducts research and evaluation, develops tools and training, and convenes practitioners and investors to discuss and learn about issues relevant to the field. Over the years, WSI has employed a variety of methodologies to investigate sectoral program strategies and activities, as well as participant outcomes. Using participatory learning evaluation techniques, WSI involves program leaders and investors in determining evaluation questions that are of interest to them, data indicators that can inform those questions, and methodologies that balance rigor, practicality and purpose in an evaluation. Principles of participatory learning evaluation serve as the guide to both WSI’s outcomes-focused research, as well as the more formative evaluations.

WSI has conducted long-term longitudinal participant outcomes surveys and in-depth individual interviews, and focus groups with a variety of informants, including program participants, program staff and leaders, investors, policy-setters, business customers, and other program stakeholders. The WSI team compiles and organizes findings for publications, public presentations and dissemination via venues such as Webinars and audio conferences. Findings from this research serve also to inform the development of tools and training that are needed by the field. A hallmark of this work is the generous contributions made by practitioners and participants, who actively participate in informing, reviewing and co-presenting the findings of WSI’s work to others.

WSI’s current work is the natural outgrowth of our past research, which indicated that workforce training programs that use a sectoral employment development approach are successful in preparing low-income individuals for steady work, better wages, good benefits and improved career opportunities. Click here to read about WSI’s history and how our work has progressed over time.