Greater Cincinnati Workforce Network

Cincinnati

, Ohio

The Greater Cincinnati labor market spans eight counties Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. The region is home to 10 Fortune 500 companies and more than 300 foreign-owned firms poised to grow. However, policies, funding, and workforce development are mostly contained in jurisdictional silos, with historically weak collaboration that threatens the regional ability to have the workforce needed to retain existing and attract new employers.

The Greater Cincinnati Workforce Network was formed to address workforce skills gaps as part of a critical economic development effort. It targets: incumbent workers who can advance from low-skill/low-wage jobs into mid-skill jobs that pay more; low-skill workers who experience many barriers in getting and keeping jobs; and entry-level workers graduating from technical high schools.

Funding Collaborative

The Greater Cincinnati Workforce Network has four components: the Workforce Network, a Leadership Council, the Funders Collaborative, and a lead organization that acts as fiscal agent and overall convener.

The Workforce Network, which includes over 300 workforce development stakeholders, serves as a regional coordinator for the workforce development system. It meets quarterly to review progress and conduct strategic discussions. The 20-organization Leadership Council serves as an executive committee of the larger Workforce Network and includes stakeholders from the WIBs, philanthropic funders, state government, employers, chambers of commerce, postsecondary educational institutions, and service providers. It meets monthly and makes all major decisions related to the initiative and advises the Funders Collaborative. The Funders Collaborative, which includes philanthropic funders and four WIBs, makes funding decisions based on the advice of the Leadership Council. The Great Cincinnati Foundation is the fiscal agent, lead organization, and chair of the Leadership Council.

Key Strategies and Interventions

The overall strategy is regional, sector-based, data-driven, and equipped to close critical skills gaps in priority local industries by advancing low-wage/low-skill workers. Its sector strategy utilizes career pathways methodology.

The focus in the current phase is to fill occupational deficits in the regional healthcare sector. In 2009-10, the network will work with Ohio officials to create projects in two additional sectors (for a total of three), and it will align these priorities with similar initiatives in Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.

By investing in strategies that build the capacity of the workforce development system, the Greater Cincinnati Workforce Network provides high-quality career advancement services to employers and lower-skilled adults. It capacity-building strategy includes technical assistance, system coordination, and investments to expand and coordinate a data collection system that will undergird local evaluation and continuous improvement.

In addition, the network will create a policy subcommittee to identify the most important system and resource barriers in the Tristate region. These will be addressed through a policy advocacy strategy dealing with system alignment and barrier reduction for low-skilled workers.

Labor Market Analysis

The following powerpoint provides an analysis of the Cincinnati regional labor market. The analysis is intended to provide a picture into overall employment conditions and structural changes in this local economy, focusing on the period from 2001-2007. Though this data does not capture changes associated with the recent 2008 recession, it should still provide useful insights into medium-term demographic and employment changes.

The data analyzed here comes from two major sources: The American Community Survey 2007 (and 1990 & 2000 Decennial Census for some charts) from the U.S. Census Bureau; and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For a full guide to the data content, structure, and how it might be used, please listen to the June 16, 2009, recorded webinar available here.