Sector Strategies

In workforce development, systems change describes efforts and initiatives that go beyond providing direct services to individual jobseekers and aim to transform how organizations effectively support employers and the workforce. Practitioners and funders involved in such efforts may be working to foster collaboration, quality and accessibility, industry engagement, data-driven decision making, or scale and sustainability in their local workforce systems. Workforce systems change initiatives aim to improve how the system serves employers and workers by coordinating or improving organizations, policies, or practices. (From the Urban Institute’s Report, Changing Workforce Systems 2017)

Sector strategies (often referred to as industry partnership) are becoming effective structures for aligning employers in a growing industry cluster or subsector and helping them develop an advanced career pathway. The approach brings together the interests of employers and educators by communicating employer needs to public systems. It provides a coordinator to organize programs into systems that meet those needs. Advanced sector strategies create career pathway systems to meet an industry’s workforce needs, and for workers they establish clear paths to good jobs and careers.

The following is from a presentation to Maine's Workforce Investment Board by Garret Groves, Senior Policy Analyst for the National Governors Association;

Maine's Industry Partnership/ Sector Strategy -2011 (pdf)

Next: Industry Partnership.