States Focus On Middle-Skills Jobs Gap

When 43-year-old Lori Faith was granted probation in 2012 after serving only eight months of her eight-year prison sentence for drug trafficking, her stint outside prison didn't last for long.

A little over a year after her release, Faith was sentenced to 10 more years in a Kentucky prison for trafficking methamphetamine. Though she says there is no excuse for her behavior, Faith attributes her return to criminal activity to her inability to find employment with a criminal record.

The drug deal that landed her back in a cell was for $50 "to put minutes on my phone and gas in my car," she says, adding that she needed a working phone in case she got a call from one of the 10 job applications she was submitting each day.

Ironically, Faith found a factory job after she sold the drug to a confidential informant but before her arrest and return to prison, which didn't occur until months later. The position didn't require a background check, and she lied about her felonies.

The next time she re-enters society, Faith hopes she won't face the same unemployment and financial issues thanks to her participation in a new Kentucky initiative called Justice to Journeyman.

The program, unveiled by Gov. Matt Bevin in March, aims to prepare inmates for "middle-skills jobs," or jobs that require advanced training, but not a bachelor's degree. Kentucky's Labor Cabinet and its Justice and Public Safety Cabinet are collaborating on the pilot project, in which inmates use their time behind bars to begin a journeyman certification process in a skilled trade.

Most of the trade certifications require about 8,000 hours of apprenticeship training in addition to classroom hours. The goal is for inmates to accrue about 2,000 of these apprenticeship hours while in prison, says Martha Slemp, who oversees education at Kentucky's 12 adult prisons. Certain companies have agreed with Kentucky's labor department to consider the convicted felons in their hiring process. Once hired, the individuals can continue their apprenticeship while earning about $15 per hour.

Skill-based jobs, like those found in the Justice to Journeyman program, are a major part of the digital economy, where new technology continues to create jobs that require very specific skill sets. State leaders worry their businesses won't be able to fill these positions if there aren't enough people with the required training, or those who do have experience aren't considered because they don't have a four-year degree.

In 2015, 53 percent of all jobs were middle-skills, but only 43 percent of American workers were trained for the positions, according to the National Skills Coalition, which represents organizations in more than 43 states. Nearly half of all job openings between 2014 and 2024 are expected to be middle-skills.

Though there is a consensus that the "middle-skills gap" will continue to have an immense impact on the economy, Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Fuller says the effects are extremely difficult to quantify. Factoring in the cost of unfilled jobs, higher wages for workers with relevant skills and the money invested in capital equipment to do work in positions unfilled by people complicate estimates, Fuller says.

At the National Governors Association summer meeting in July, more than 30 governors convened to speak about the most pressing issues they face, and the middle skills gap made the list. At the meeting, Bevin explained Justice to Journeyman to his fellow state lawmakers, stressing its benefits to businesses and to the state.

He described how about 95 percent of Kentucky's prisoners will be released at some point, so it makes sense to educate them so they can contribute to society. It's easy for inmates to acquire a good portion of the training hours they need to become a journeyman because "you know where they're going to be at 7:30 in the morning," Bevin added.

But even with the training, the inmates could be unable to find a job without Justice to Journeyman's business partnerships. Former felons have extremely low chances of employment upon release, as Faith experienced during her time away from prison. A 2007 analysis describes how only 40 percent of employers said they would "definitely" or "probably" hire former felons, whereas 90 percent said they would hire people with little work experience.

With steady employment, studies reveal that felons are less likely to commit new crimes. In a study investigating the recidivism rate of inmates over a three-year period, 16 percent of those who had one year of employment were reincarcerated, compared to 52 percent of all inmates in the study.

And with fewer convicted felons, Kentucky could potentially pay less than the half-billion dollars it spends on corrections each year.

The state is running pilot programs in three adult prisons – including the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women, where Faith has served time since 2013 – and four juvenile justice facilities.

At the state's only women's prison, Faith and 14 other women were selected to participate in an electrical program. During the past nine months, the women have learned everything from how to build a three-way light switch to how to set up a service box and use a cable puller.

Faith, who says she doesn't think "on the outside I would have ever taken the time to educate myself like I have in here," now jokes with her son: "I'm going to be an electrician when I grow up."

Traci Martin, another inmate in the program, says the training has motivated her to change her behavior. Instead of adding to her 18-year sentence through bad behavior, she now spends time outside of class studying in her dorm for weekly tests. With a husband who is facing prison time, Martin says she needs to succeed in order to support her four children who are minors.

Faith says she wants to eventually work as an industrial electrician, and Martin plans to have her own electric company one day.

Among the state's other initiatives, Kentucky is investing $100 million in a workforce development program. The state will also pay for an individual's associate's degree (if they haven't earned one in the past), regardless of age, for jobs that need to be filled, as long as that person commits to at least two years of work after earning their diploma.

In addition to Kentucky, Colorado has also been a pioneer in addressing the middle-skills gap through its partnership with the Markle Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to advance technology to broaden employment opportunities. The Centennial State works with one of the foundation's initiatives, called Skillful, to connect American workers with middle-skills jobs.

Because many employers don't often consider applicants without college degrees, Skillful leaders argue that companies are missing out on some employees who could be a perfect fit for vacant positions.

To bridge this divide, Skillful provides resources for employers to hire based on the skill sets they need. Additionally, Skillful helps job seekers find positions they are qualified for, and for those who don't have advanced training, it lists what skills they need to get certain jobs.

A handful of businesses have collaborated with Skillful, including Aqua-Hot Heating Systems, a manufacturing company just north of Denver that creates hydronic heating systems for RVs, commercial fleets and other industries.

Aqua-Hot President and CEO Paul Harter works with the Skillful team to find candidates for open positions in his company and educates other employers in his area about the initiative.

By using skill-based hiring, Harter says his company has filled some positions with workers who otherwise may have never have been considered.

Aqua-Hot hired a certified diesel mechanic for a position that the company traditionally filled with a mechanical engineer. Rather than requiring a mechanical engineering degree, the company listed the skills the position required. "Some of our products are diesel powered, so it lined right up and we hired the [diesel mechanic]," Harter says.

The mechanic has since moved to Alaska, and "frankly, we're having a hard time finding anybody as good," he says.

As another example, the company's receptionist is a former Wells Fargo bank teller. The position requires her to "wear many hats" and take care of anything from bookkeeping to order entry.

"Who would have thought?" Harter says of the hire. "She's kicking butt."

Harter is also focused on bridging the gap between the business community and educational institutions, another of Skillful's focus points. He works with local schools and training programs to ensure students are learning the skills his company needs.

Skillful CEO Beth Cobert says LinkedIn and Microsoft – which recently invested $25 million in the project – have collaborated on the initiative. She hopes Skillful will move to other states, but says that all states can take advantage of online resources and follow the models the program has in place.

Other states are working to bridge the middle-skills gap by joining the Pathways to Prosperity Network, a collaboration among regions, states, the nonprofit Jobs for the Future and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Eight states and five regions, including Philadelphia and Central Ohio are currently members of the network. It aims to connect leaders in high school systems, community college systems and the workforce, according to Harvard professor emeritus and Pathways to Prosperity co-founder Robert Schwartz.

Schwartz says Tennessee and Delaware are the furthest along in their efforts to fill jobs where employers are "feeling the pain." His research shows that these positions are primarily in information technology, health care and advanced manufacturing.

Yet, even with all of these state efforts, lawmakers and business leaders agree that there are societal obstacles to overcome in order for real change to occur.

"We have to destigmatize this idea of not going immediately to get a four-year degree," Bevin told his fellow state lawmakers at NGA. "We have done people a disservice in telling them, 'If you haven't achieved a four-year degree, you're a failure.'"

Part of this destigmatization has to come from the corporate side, according to Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo. "You need a real commitment to competency-based hiring," she said.

That doesn't seem to be an issue, according to AquaHot's Harter. "Employers seem to be coming onboard in droves," he says. "They're already driven, they need the workforce. … They're forced into a corner, so they have to change their thinking to survive."

The bigger hurdle, he says, are parents. For decades now, a measure of success in America has been whether a person has sent his or her kids to college, Harter explains.

The new thinking for some is that college isn't the only path to career success and fulfillment.

"There's a great disjunction between what we've been telling people, which is, 'go to college, get a four-year degree and you'll succeed,' and what they actually need to succeed in the digital economy," Markle Foundation CEO and President Zoe Baird told the governors at NGA.

In 2016, there were 7.3 million fewer jobs held by Americans with a high school diploma or less than there were in 1989, according to a Georgetown University study.

"And in some ways the single most important question for all of us in this country is, how do we move forward without leaving some people behind?" Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said in a video that was shown at the governors conference.

The governors stressed that there are apprenticeships for many jobs that people wouldn't necessarily expect, in fields such as IT and health care. In many cases, employers in these fields offer further skills training and education as workers progress in the field.

Still, Harter says it's important not to completely move away from university degrees.

"We swung the pendulum too far for the college degree [including the] non-degree stigma," he says. "We can't swing it too far the other way. We need to get it back to center."