Major labor shortages are predicted by the end of this decade as baby boomers retire. Contributing to the shortages is the serious skills deficit that plagues the existing workforce, especially low-wage workers. The Employment Program supports policy analysis and development, research, and advocacy that helps low-wage, low-skilled individuals connect to the labor market, stay employed and advance to higher-paying jobs.
Program priorities are:
Evaluating employment strategies for formerly incarcerated individuals
The Joyce Foundation is funding a research demonstration project to test whether transitional jobs programs are an effective employment strategy for formerly incarcerated individuals.
Promoting employment stability
- Advocacy projects that work to defend, maintain, and, when possible, expand work-related benefit policies, including Medicaid, Child Health Insurance, food stamps, earned income tax credit, and child care subsidies
- Research efforts that add to existing knowledge about the relationship between work-related benefit policies and job retention and advancement
- Policy development to improve state and federal service delivery to better match the needs of low-wage workers
Shifting Gears: An Employment Policy Initiative
The Joyce Foundation is leading an effort to strengthen policies to enable low-wage and low-skilled workers to advance in education and training systems, to acquire postsecondary credentials, and to move up in the labor market. Funding supports:
- Convening and staffing cross-agency state working groups empowered to improve state policies on adult education, workforce development, post-secondary education, welfare, and economic development;
- Advocacy and strategic communications to promote public investment in this work; and
- Development and evaluation of regional demonstrations in order to inform state policy.
The Foundation does not provide operating support for direct services, such as job training or transitional jobs programs.
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