The Workforce Almanac

Mapping the workforce development sector across the US

Problem

The United States workforce development sector has historically been treated in silos. As a result, practitioners and researchers alike have struggled to understand it as a system that includes higher education institutions, registered apprenticeships, organizations eligible to receive WIOA funds, and non-profit providers. To understand how well the workforce development sector really serves American workers and communities, we need to identify where providers are located, to measure key provider characteristics and to consider the entirety of a worker’s life cycle, aspirations, and needs.

Our Approach

The Workforce Almanac is a first-of-its-kind initiative that aims to help us move away from a siloed conception of workforce development training provision and towards a new, integrated idea of the sector that puts the worker front and center.

In this first iteration of the Workforce Almanac, we have mapped almost 17,000 providers of workforce training, which we have defined as short-term (lasting less than two years), post-high school training opportunities in which learners gain work-relevant skills to help them find a job.

Using our data portal, you can see how these workforce training providers are spread geographically across the US, and view their names, addresses, and types.

Why it matters

In the context of a relevant gap between job openings and job seekers, occupational segregation, and evident skill gaps, a more integrated approach to workforce development training provision is essential. People need a broader view of training pathways that are more approachable, swift, and closer aligned to workplace needs. The cost for diverse communities who cannot access effective workforce training options is high, especially as emerging technologies render some skills obsolete while increasing demand for others.

The infrastructure for short-term workforce training opportunities exists, but is hidden in fragmentation. Nearly 17,000 training providers operate a variety of programs, develop many different skills, confer a wide set of credentials, and target a diverse range of workers. Exploring a more integrated approach to these opportunities can offer a paradigm shift in how we better prepare our workforce for the present and the future.

The Workforce Almanac is an effort to better understand this broad and important system and offer open access data for practitioners and researchers to use in ways that improve workforce training pathways for workers and learners.

How it can be used

  • Policymakers, including state and local workforce boards, can integrate the Almanac data with other more granular information to improve their decision-making on resource allocation and to work more strategically with training providers serving their areas.
  • Philanthropies can find communities with a high need for investment and better inform their grant-making strategies.
  • Training providers can explore what other providers may have coverage in the areas they are looking to serve for benchmarking or collaboration purposes.
  • Intermediaries and employers can better understand the local and regional training provision landscape to match learners and workers to existing training opportunities, or from training to employment opportunities.
  • Researchers in the field can explore other geospatial dimensions of this data – including local labor markets, metropolitan areas, and rural areas–to produce new insights into the workforce development sector.
  • We are just beginning to learn where practitioners and researchers will take this open access data to improve workforce training pathways.

What's in the data

0
Organizations, spanning many different types, geographies, and program offerings
Workforce training providers are included from across all US states and territories
Providers come in all types
WIOA-eligibleNon-profitsHigher ed. institut ...Apprenticenships5, 9774, 8573, 7872, 889

Where the data comes from

01
Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
Surveys conducted annually by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
02
TrainingProvidersResults.gov (TPR)
TrainingProvidersResults.gov (TPR)
A Department of Labor list of Eligible Training Programs
03
Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Database System (RAPIDS)
The Department of Labor’s primary platform for managing apprentices, occupations, job openings, and other relevant program information within states
04
IRS Form 990 Data
Forms used by smaller, tax-exempt organizations for annual reporting