The North Carolina Association of Workforce Development Boards (NCAWDB) is pleased to announce that we have been selected as a partner for the Sanford School of Public Policy’s Spring Consulting Project!
This annual project pairs a team of three to five Duke Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) students with a client organization that is seeking to address a policy challenge related to their mission or operations. Each student will commit roughly 100 hours over the course of the spring semester to researching, analyzing, and recommending an appropriate course of action for the client organization. Previous client organizations include RTI International, the NALEO Education Fund, Education NC, and the NC Department of Health and Human Services.
The NCAWDB will work with this team of students to decide on what steps our twenty-two local workforce development boards should take to improve outreach to disconnected workers that are eligible for their services. Since the COVID-19 pandemic upended normalcy, employment rates in North Carolina struggled to recover, but right now the number of unemployed individuals is on the rise. There is a tremendous need to reach these individuals. The team from the Sanford School will help us reach these individuals to connect them to the services that can be found online or at any of the NCWorks Career Center locations.
By working with the students from the Sanford School at Duke University, the NCAWDB will be better equipped to reach those individuals who are out-of-work but also be able to better serve local North Carolina businesses small and large in fulfilling hiring needs. Many businesses and industries at large are still struggling to hire new talent. This problem is not unique to North Carolina either. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, 2.95 million workers have left the labor force since February of 2020. Replacing these workers has been an ongoing struggle. This huge loss of workers has affected various businesses from different industries in a number of ways with many shortening hours, reducing services, reassigning responsibilities, or closing on certain days of the week in order to cope with the staffing shortages.
The NCWorks Career Centers does also offer assistance for employers. Employers can post job listings to the website to be matched with qualified candidates and view their résumés. The NCWorks services also provide employers with a way to manage and track applicants. Additionally, employers have access to labor market information to assess possible hiring trends as well as a search tool to connect them to training and education programs for either themselves or their employees.
For these reasons and many more, the NCAWDB is excited to begin working with the students from the Sanford School and is looking forward to providing an update in early May!
For further information on the Sanford School’s Spring Consulting Project: https://sanford.duke.edu/career-services/employers-partners/sanford-spring-consulting-project/
For further information on the NCAWDB: https://www.ncworks.gov/vosnet/Default.aspx?enc=vLa15KtdCzQQMP6jrcRdIQ==
For further information on the services from NCWorks Career Centers: https://www.ncworks.gov/vosnet/Default.aspx?enc=vLa15KtdCzQQMP6jrcRdIQ==
For further information on national trends from the US Chamber of Commerce:
https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/america-works-data-center
