Opportunities for Change

A good job quality strategy includes a framework and minimum standards, as well as goals that inform budget, policy and practice change.

Centering a job quality strategy on equity requires an understanding of labor market inequalities and an acknowledgement of the current and historical racism and sexism that continue to impact American workers.

Government workforce agencies committed to advancing job quality should consider compliance metrics as the starting point—not the destination—when it comes to job quality measurement and data infrastructure.

Internal inquiries about job quality increase worker voice and can be illuminating, particularly for agencies that don’t realize that they need to make changes to address quality and equity.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce development activities such as education and training programs must also accommodate caregiver needs and/or be coupled with appropriate resources or subsidies to secure care.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce and economic development agencies can advance strategies to finance their job quality strategy for the long term.

This job quality initiative outlines how workforce and economic development agencies can leverage employee ownership to raise wages and increase assets for companies and organizations, as well as decrease job turnover.

This job quality intervention outlines how jobseekers and workers in public workforce programs are better equipped to consider, identify and advocate for the job quality components important to them when they have access to the right tools, information and support.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce and economic development agencies can ensure that workers are protected through existing laws and employers are held accountable for not following required job quality legal protections.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce and economic agencies can use multiple approaches to help foster ikigai, or purpose and meaning in the workplace.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce and economic development agencies can support and partner with employer-assisted housing (EAH) to address workforce housing issues.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce and economic development agencies can compensate for a lack of federal action by creating living wage policies to mandate or incentivize wages that are high enough to allow workers to meet their basic needs.

This job quality intervention outlines how to use unions as critical partners in advancing shared job quality and equity goals.

This job quality intervention outlines how, after developing a framework, workforce and economic development agencies can set and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) to lay the groundwork for long-term success.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce agencies can establish or advance “springboard” strategies that increase the chance entry-level low-wage jobs become stepping stones for clients, not end points.

This job quality intervention outlines the following components: stability, predictability and rest.

This job quality intervention outlines how workforce, economic development, and human services agencies can advance living wages through the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal wage subsidies they provide to employers each year.