Reflections on Green Job Training

WorkSquare was invited to participate in a conference last week in Birmingham, Alabama on developing green job training programs for low-income workers. The conference was kindly put on by Wider Opportunities for Women and sponsored by the Ms. Foundation for Women.

I attended as a skeptic... with a not-so-small part of me wanting oh-so-much to believe in this... and then watched my skepticism grow. Reflections as follows. Dissent is welcome and encouraged.

1. Few if any of these training programs are demand-driven (e.g., designed in response to the direct hiring needs of real employers). Until employers state a need for a specific position and an inability to find that skill-set, training programs will continue to produce unemployable graduates. It is a waste of time and resources, not to mention a wild source of frustration, to train individuals for positions that do not exist. The millions of Recovery Act dollars that were wasted in misguided training programs is offensive, most of all to the low-income individuals who spent their time participating. If you don't believe me, I have several partipants I can gladly introduce you to.

2. In markets that DO show demand for green skills, this demand is still reliant on subsidies. Weatherization and solar panel installation are promising services given that consumers can finance large up-front expenditures and capture return on investment in the form of lower energy costs. That said, two significant risks still exists. Firstly, if subsidies disappear, jobs will go with them. Second, service providers noted that the need for consumer education was immense and well beyond expectations. This continued need to educate consumers on (1) the environmental importance of the product/service, (2) the projected financial benefit, and (3) how to apply for and receive a tax credit in a no doubt bureaucratic process, all create additional marketing and administrative costs that would be prohibitive in most business models.

3. All green training programs emphasized the importance of work-readiness skills as a precursor to industry-specific training. This strengthened my belief that education and training dollars should be spent on basic work readiness long before specific skill training. For every one employee who may be terminated for his or her lack of deft skill in solar panel installation, one hundred others are terminated for inability to get to work on time, find adequate childcare, or manage workplace conflict appropriately. Employers are willing to train good employees with industry-specific skills...but bad employees -- skilled or otherwise -- are useless.

4. Post-training placement remains a huge obstacle and bottleneck -- trainers struggle to connect with employers. Many of the organizations providing green job training (CBOs, social service orgs, worker rights orgs, etc.) reported much difficulty in reaching employers and convincing them to hire graduates. Given this challenge, it was particularly noteworthy that there was next to no private-sector representation in the entire conference (I saw one representative from a for-profit construction general contractor). If we're trying to sell to these people, wouldn't it make sense to get their opinion? Several organizations have employer councils, which is a step in the right direction, but the overall dialogue lacks the much-needed input of private-sector employers.

We are sadly still a long way off from making this an effective workforce development strategy, much less a tool in spurring current job creation.