Improving Job Quality and Access

Local workforce system programs seek to improve working conditions and hiring practices and to connect low-income people with good jobs. They can also play a role in economic development to ensure that economically disadvantaged residents have access to job opportunities created by new employers and industries. Local workforce system organizations and programs aim to improve job quality through these strategies as well:

• Encouraging “high road” employer practices, which include paying higher wages, providing benefits (such as paid vacation and sick leave, health insurance, tuition reimbursement, and retirement), predictable scheduling, safe working conditions, and opportunities to advance through clear career ladders—practices that increase work performance and reduce turnover
• Advocating for changes in policies regarding wages or working conditions, such as higher minimum wages, paid leave, reduced criminal history disclosure requirements, overtime rules, and safe working conditions
• Pursue community benefit agreements, which are contracts developed by community stakeholders that lay out a set of community benefits that result from an economic development project (such as requirements to hire from certain neighborhoods, communities, or targeted groups that have been neglected by the local labor market)