This research report offers an overview of labor trends and systemic barriers to employment to contextualize Black women’s current economic and occupational status. The authors explore the history of Black women’s economic mobility; how occupational segregation, discrimination, and stereotypes impact Black women’s experiences in the labor market; and offer recommendations aimed at increasing economic equity. This resource may be of particular interest to individuals and organizations focused on learning about or addressing systemic barriers to race and gender equity in the labor market.

This series, informed by local job quality initiatives, can support workforce development professionals interested in beginning or strengthening engagement with employers to improve job quality. The reports are organized around three areas: 1) Strategies for Resourcing Job Quality Initiatives, with a focus on co-investment strategies with employers; 2) Practitioner competencies that can support staff engaged in job quality efforts with employers; and 3) Employer readiness characteristics to consider when determining employer partners. The last report also includes a link to a resource to help practitioners navigate employer resistance to change efforts. This series may also be useful for others interested in partnering on local job quality efforts, including economic development professionals and employers.

The Employer Engagement Question Bank is designed to help workforce professionals engage in conversations with businesses to support the job seekers they work with. This tool can be used to learn about a business with an eye toward providing workforce services, developing expertise about industry norms and practices, and building relationships that build credibility in discussions about strategies for promoting worker retention and advancement. The tool includes questions to build understanding of the business, its workforce needs, and a range of job quality factors including compensation, opportunities for advancement, and equity and inclusion. Workforce development practioners and other professionals who support workers can adapt the tool to meet their employer engagement goals.

The Voices from the Frontline initiative produced this brief to elevate the conversation around job quality in the workforce development field and what a focus on job quality for frontline workforce professionals could look like in practice. In addition to quantitative measures such as wages, the authors note that feeling a sense of purpose and ownership over one’s work can be beneficial for workforce professionals and the workers they serve. This publication has applications for workforce development organizations as they work to assess and improve their own internal job quality metrics.

This report examines definitions and research on job quality and provides a job quality framework based on findings. It focuses on job quality elements with the potential to support economic mobility. Designed to provide common ground for discussions around job quality, this report may be useful for practitioners and employers interested in exploring job quality frameworks and the link between job quality elements, worker well-being, and upward mobility.

This report addresses worsening job quality during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from the 2020 Great Jobs Survey and building on the 2019 Great Jobs report. Among other insights, the report addresses how COVID-19 had a differential impact on high wage versus low wage workers, how job quality before the pandemic predicted job quality changes during the pandemic, and how COVID-19 has created new job quality challenges, such as increased remote work.

This report includes 23 practices to embed racial equity into your organization by developing, recognizing, and promoting frontline employees of color. Employers and practitioners can use this resource to structure and implement equitable policies for advancement to strengthen their business.

This resource provides guidance on language to help organizations more effectively communicate about racial economic equity. This document includes definitions of important terms and concepts for understanding racial economic equity, the racial wealth divide, and racial wealth equity as well as design guidelines on visually depicting diverse communities. This guide has relevance for a range of organizations interested in communicating about the important link between racial equity and job quality for those who want to advance racial equity.

Building a race equity culture can support organizations’ capacity to reduce racial disparities within their organizations and through their external strategies. This resource is designed to support practitioners to strengthen internal organizational culture as it relates to race equity. This publication can support a range of organizations to prioritize racial equity, embed equitable practices, and monitor outcomes.

The Employee Ownership Toolkit is a step-by-step guide for transitioning a company to cooperative ownership. The experience of South Mountain Company is described in detail, helping bridge the gap between theory and practice. Definitions of certain technical terms, particularly concerning finance, are also provided.