Moving the Workforce Intermediary Agenda Forward

Workforce intermediaries offer great potential for improving the practice of workforce development, but they are not yet having a significant impact on changing how urban labor markets work. In assessing the significance of intermediaries, one should place as much emphasis on changing the hiring and advancement practices of employers as on increasing the supply of trained workers. Workforce and economic development need to be better linked to expand the scale and scope of what intermediaries can accomplish, and two strategies are offered for making this link. The first way includes sectoral strategies. Leading foundation-led sectoral initiatives that employ a workforce intermediary strategy are discussed. The second strategy is to create more comprehensive links between workforce and economic development activity, particularly at the city level. Chicago and Seattle are offered as examples of cities that use different strategies to make the link.