Rachel Zinn
WDQC Director
June 10, 2015
WorkforceDQC.org
Making Sense of the Skills Gap Conversation
Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me
• Advocate for inclusive, aligned and market-relevant education
and workforce data that can help our nation’s human capital
policies meet the challenges of a changing economy.
• Promote federal and state reforms for data systems that provide
useful information for policymakers, students and workers,
business leaders and educators.
– State Blueprint with 13 key features of a high-quality data infrastructure
– Address federal legislation, funding and technical assistance
– Policy agenda developed by broad coalition of national organizations,
state leaders and technical experts across education/workforce spectrum
WDQC Mission
National Partners
Funders
Apollo Education Group
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Joyce Foundation
Laura & John Arnold Foundation
Lumina Foundation
• Renewed Focus on Skills Gap
• Types of Skills Gaps
• Where Do We Go From Here?
Overview
Hot Topic
• Recession, slow recovery, shifting economy
• Influential employer advocacy
• Student debt / rethinking higher education
• Ongoing concerns about global competition
• One of few bipartisan policy issues
Context for the Conversation
Types of Skills Gap
• Soft skills, work readiness
• Basic literacy/numeracy skills
• Technical competencies
• Credential/occupation mismatch
• Skills gap vs. wage gap
• K-12 / career pathways / BA degree
• Employer or gov’t responsibility
• Credentials or skills?
Big Debates
Influencing the Debate
• Sound methodology is critical, but only goes so far
• Understanding policy context makes research actionable
• Design research questions & disseminate results with sensitivity to how they are used
