Business Retention & Attraction Strategies: Workforce Development
Developing the Skilled Workforce Necessary for Southern California’s Future Prosperity
The Issue/Challenge
California’s challenge over the next ten years is to provide enough college graduates and skilled workers to meet our state’s anticipated workforce needs in 2025 when forecasters tell us the state will be one million college graduates and one million middle-skill workers short of demand. In Southern California, the challenge is even greater since socioeconomic data indicates that the region has a much lower than average educational attainment level, which in turn results in alarmingly low per capita income and low median household income levels, and a disturbingly high poverty rate (one in four children in the region live below the poverty line).
The Southern California Leadership Council’s Position
The Southern California Leadership Council supports innovative actions that will develop the highly skilled workforce necessary for our state’s economy to recover and thrive – actions that will increase the number of college graduates in California and also fill the need for middle-skill workers in the state over the short and long term.
To achieve this, the Leadership Council supports measures directed toward California’s educational systems and institutions that are designed to increase and enhance data driven decision making, foster public-private partnerships, and increase accessibility and affordability.
In addition, the Leadership Council supports the creation of an effective workforce development strategy to address Southern California’s low educational and income attainment levels, its high poverty rate and the impact of these on the region’s economy, its citizens, and its quality of life.