To view a draft of the 2007-09 Workforce Services Plan

    WorkForce Services Plan

    WorkForce Services Plan - Attachment #1

    WorkForce Services Plan - Attachment #2

    WorkForce Services Plan - Attachment #3

Broward County, as the gateway to the Americas, enjoys one of the strongest economies in the state. Our unemployment rate at 4.4% is one of the lowest in Florida. Our job growth is one of the highest in the nation at about 2.1% per month. Unfortunately, much of that job growth is in the tourism and hospitality industries, which traditionally create low paying, low skill jobs. Economic development agencies recognize this problem and efforts to bring clean industry to Broward abound. Overall the economy is strong and the prognosis is good.

High paying jobs however require high skills. If the existing labor pool does not have the skills to take the jobs, then job creation and business relocation efforts will fail. Further, even if high paying jobs are created, the job seeker will be unable to get the job. Marketing efforts to the business community will be frustrating to the employer and the job seeker as well as the agency doing the marketing.

We also know that the demands of the labor market are changing at an ever-increasing rate. We are the first generation in which knowledge has doubled within our lifetimes and if the current rate of knowledge increase merely levels off, today's kindergarten class will face a doubling of knowledge as adults every 38 days. Institutions and businesses faced with the problem of training prospective workers will be hard pressed to keep up. Workers will rapidly find their skills outdated so upgrade training will become a major part of workforce development. Workers in dead-end, no skills, low paying jobs will find they cannot support a family. They will learn that they have to access skills training and upgrade training to advance to jobs paying a self-sufficient wage.

Employers in one national study after another are reporting that personal problems and life style situations are barriers to finding reliable, productive workers. With 49% of the workforce now women, for example, issues such as safe public transportation and affordable, accessible childcare become major business issues.

To make use of the available workforce extraordinary efforts will be needed to help those willing job seekers that face extraordinary barriers to employment. These unequal needs will require unequal resources. Services will have to be on a continuum from self-service all the way to case management intervention and will have to be tailored to the individual. One size will not fit all. They will have to be customer friendly and seamless.

Employers will look to the system to do what they cannot. Government and training institutions will have to train job seekers on basic skills, work habits, life skills and job coping skills in addition to the specific work skills the job requires. As any employer knows, it is often not the specific job skills that divide a good employee from an undesirable, it is often the "intangibles."

Recognizing the challenge, institutions will need to know what is going on in the employer community and will change their services to meet the need. Communities will continue to get more competitive about job creation and business expansion/relocation. Incentive systems and partnership programs will be constantly created in the rush to meet the need. Everyone involved will find it extremely difficult to keep up with what is happening and what is available. "Connecting activities" will be of major importance to align need with solution. Essentially, the question will become "How does the business community and the governmental/training community keep in touch with the rapid changes going on in each group" It is already a major problem.

The Workforce Investment Act and Florida's Workforce Development Plan attempt to answer these questions. Broward too will need an overall framework to guide our efforts to address these problems.