Emphasizing Equity Within the Public Workforce System

The public workforce system, with an intentional focus on equitable policy development, service design, service delivery, and other key elements, can directly increase opportunity and outcomes for marginalized and underrepresented groups in regional economies. Because this system seeks to provide family-sustaining employment with career growth, it is a powerful tool to drive change and prosperity for families, neighborhoods, and communities across the country.

State and local workforce development systems, however, need better guidance on how best to create and implement services that achieve equitable access and outcomes for all workers. This guidance should promote opportunity, facilitate community connections, and ensure that, through strategic partnerships with employers, services are equitably designed to provide the skills that regional businesses need to grow.

Workforce System Equity Framework

Through our extensive technical assistance work across the country, AIR’s workforce development experts have identified seven key characteristics of an equitable public workforce system. To be more equitable, systems must be:

Data-driven;
Human-centered;
Able to identify and minimize systemic barriers;
Focused on diverse internal hiring and professional development;
Partner-focused;
Culturally responsive; and
Intentional about resource allocation.

These characteristics are reflected throughout AIR’s Workforce System Equity Framework, which supports state and local workforce development systems’ efforts to create and implement services that achieve equitable access and outcomes for all people. The Framework also communicates a set of elements for the workforce system that underpins equitable service design and delivery and includes strategies (for each element) to achieve an equitable system.