Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19 Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series (2021) / Chapter Skim
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3 Boston, Massachusetts
3 Boston, Massachusetts
Pages 29-56
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From page 29... ...
In fact, said Lipson, Boston has one of the largest racial wealth gaps in the country, and inequity has been skyrocketing with a bifurcation between high-wage and low-wage job pathways. In addition, housing prices have made the city unaffordable for many, and gentrification remains a pressing issue.
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From page 30... ...
This workshop began with sessions that presented data on economics, the labor force, educational attainment, and demographics for the Boston metropolitan area and the importance of creating an economic recovery that is equitable for Bostonians. The workshop then discussed how workforce development organizations, educational institutions, and training providers shifted their operations and program delivery mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic; the ways in which the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities in the region and the ongoing work to embed anti-racism in training activities; and the linkages between STEMM workforce development and entrepreneurship.
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From page 31... ...
, with almost half of the residents of the metro area having a college degree com pared to 33 percent nationally. The region also has almost double the share of workers with graduate or professional degrees compared to the national FIGURE 3-1 Demographics of the greater Boston metropolitan area (left)
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From page 32... ...
average. Educational attainment in the city proper is similar to that of the metro area except there are higher shares of residents in the city who do not have a high school diploma or who have less than a ninth-grade education.
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From page 33... ...
. Similarly, for the week ending October 9, 2020, postings for jobs requiring "minimal" education had fallen by 52.9 percent from January's level compared to a 30.2 percent decline for all job postings and a 10 percent decline for job postings requiring "extensive" education.
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From page 34... ...
.1 In addition, the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank estimates that Boston's opportunity employment situation -- defined as jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree but pay above regional median wages -- is less strong than for other parts of the country. Lipson discussed how the mix of industries in a region has a direct bearing on the number of jobs that could be lost in that region as automation continues to take hold across different employers.
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From page 35... ...
She noted that her office is the largest regional funder of workforce development efforts in the region, funding between $14 and $20 million annually on programs run by its partners, including community colleges and nonprofit organization in the area. While she acknowledged that this is hardly enough money to have a big impact on workforce development, it enables her office to leverage other resources to provide opportunities such as tuition-free community college.
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From page 36... ...
Topics discussed included emergency and contracting STEMM workforce development opportunities in greater Boston, partnerships to support operations in a resource-constrained environment, and continuity in training and wrap-around services as programs move online. The panel featured four speakers: Kaitlyn Bean, senior program officer at the Boston Foundation; Lane Glenn, president of Northern Essex Community College;
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From page 37... ...
With the pandemic raging, this activity became what she called a moral imperative. Since March 2020, SkillWorks has been in close contact with all of Boston Foundation's grantees and other partners to conduct listening sessions, share information, and determine how the foundation, as a funder, convener, and influencer, can best support the immediate needs of the community and greater Boston's overall economic recovery in the months and years ahead.
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From page 38... ...
His institution, and likely all of the other community colleges in the state, announced early during the pandemic that it planned to move its courses online for the fall 2020 semester. Making that decision early allowed the community college to spend the summer training faculty and redesigning some courses to be ready to provide online education for its students.
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From page 39... ...
On a final note, Glenn described how the community colleges are putting out an "innovation playbook" on promising practices for fostering innovation in post-pandemic health education. Healthcare Training Programs Adapt Pokaski said that the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has been heavily affected by the pandemic and has had to put trainees and practicums on hold as it dealt with the enormous medical emergency wrought by COVID-19.
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From page 40... ...
Like the other speakers' organizations, Rubin's shifted immediately to providing its services remotely, offering online classes using Google classroom, Zoom, and WhatsApp, which many immigrants were com fortable using; setting up a laptop and wireless hotspot lending library; and implementing volunteer "digital navigators" to help those clients who had limited digital literacy. It also developed and launched a remote talent match portal for online employment services so that employers could post jobs in a curated manner and job seekers could upload resumes and work with career counselors.
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From page 41... ...
The hospitality industry, however, remained in crisis mode. Rubin's policy and strategy recommendations included expanding resources for proven employment and skills services and expanding investments in remote learning and remote employment services.
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From page 42... ...
In response, one hospitality training program pivoted quickly to start training laid-off housekeepers for environmental services positions at hospitals. One barrier she noted was that people with a criminal background find it easier to get a job in the hospitality industry and move up in that industry than at a hospital.
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From page 43... ...
COVID-19 AND BOSTON'S ECONOMIC DIVIDE: THE INTERSECTION OF THE PANDEMIC, RACIAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND ACCESS TO GOOD JOBS IN STEMM The second panel focused on ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities in Boston and how multi-stakeholder approaches to STEMM workforce development can directly address those inequities. The panel's four speakers were Tyra Anderson-Montina, Boston site director of Year Up, a program that connects young adults and companies to launch careers, power business, and build community; David Delmar Sentíes, founder and executive director of Resilient Coders, which trains people of color for high-growth careers as software engineers and connects them with jobs; Valerie Roberson, president of Roxbury Community College; and Neal Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private Industry Council, which works at the intersection of business and community interests to connect Boston residents to promising career pathways while creating a diverse talent pipeline for local employers.
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From page 44... ...
Going forward, Roberson is hopeful that the pandemic will bring about new ways to partner and to be more effective in creating schedules that help students be successful. Investing in Public Schools Sullivan noted that one of the things that makes Boston strong is that there are several interlocking boards and initiatives that work together regularly, which has allowed the city's workforce development efforts to be as nimble as possible in these unprecedented times.
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From page 45... ...
In addition, as Roberson noted, the pandemic has increased food and housing insecurity among the students, in addition to taking a toll on their mental health, particularly considering the racial trauma that so many of the communities it serves have experienced over the past year. Coding Bootcamps to Address Equity Delmar Sentíes explained that Resilient Coders is a highly competitive, free coding bootcamp for young adults of color who come from low-income backgrounds.
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From page 46... ...
In Delmar Sentíes's opinion, there is a need to find a more democratic way to fund workforce development, perhaps by a corporate equity tax on those companies that do not abide by the body of principles. Discussion Regarding wrap-around services and their importance for education, Roberson noted that Roxbury Community College has a partnership with Year Up in which the college provides the education and Year Up handles all the wrap-around services, including a monetary stipend and training in soft skills.
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From page 47... ...
When asked about the linkages that need to develop between community colleges and four-year institutions to deal with racial justice in Boston, Roberson said that it is important that any time a college creates a degree program, it should consider both what the student will do afterward and what the student needs to get there, which taken together will dictate the partnerships that need to be arranged. For example, Roxbury Community College has partnerships with area high schools to help students who want to go into STEMM fields determine the courses they need to be successful in college and then have the high schools offer dual high school/college credit for certain courses.
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From page 48... ...
This discussion also highlighted how entrepreneurial support organizations -- including incubators, accelerators, and makerspaces -- have worked closely with community-based partners to build ecosystems with strong connections to STEMM workforce develop ment programming. The three speakers for this panel were Jen Faigel, executive director and co-founder of CommonWealth Kitchen, Boston's food business incubator; Sonia Moin, senior director of urban business initiatives at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a Boston-based national nonprofit organization that drives inclusive economic prosperity in under-resourced communities through innovative research and programs to create jobs, income, and wealth for local residents; and Michelle Weise, senior advisor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Imaginable Futures, a global philan thropic investment firm focusing on driving innovations that holistically support learners, from academics to life skills, and enable lifelong learning and lasting wellbeing for them, their families, and their communities.
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From page 49... ...
. These regional differences in job skill demands are important to understand for job seekers who want to work in a certain region and need to know what skill gaps to fill to make themselves competitive for jobs.
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From page 50... ...
think about how we help people move from survival mode into something that can lead to better economic opportunity with just a handful of skills they can build quickly." Becoming an Entrepreneur Faigel addressed what it is like to be an entrepreneur who had been in a low-wage job with no potential for advancement. Her experience at CommonWealth Kitchen has shown that a person's confidence level soars even as they are just starting their business and start making connections and forming their own networks.
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From page 51... ...
If the program will be virtual, it is important to know whether people in the targeted demographic will have access to a computer and reliable internet connection. "I know we would love to believe that if we build a program, they will come and we will help everybody, but that is not the case," said Moin.
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From page 52... ...
Instead of taking the $20 to $30 million dollars that the federal government is sending to Boston, which then spends it in New Jersey where the money eventually flows to a multinational corporation based in California, that money could be invested in local businesses that would employ local workers and support local farms and fisheries. Faigel noted that CommonWealth Kitchen is part of a coalition, the Massachusetts Equitable Paycheck Protection Program Coalition that went to local banks and told them they need to work with Black-, brown-, and immigrant-owned businesses and spoke to the business owners to convince them that they needed to apply for Paycheck Protection Program funds.
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From page 53... ...
Both Flynn and Schwartz said they were optimistic, given what they had heard, that the recovery from the COVID-19 economic downturn would catalyze actions to overcome persistent economic development challenges that have been hard for the city to tackle during previous economic recoveries. In one sense, the national reckoning around racial equity and justice has brought more attention to this issue and enabled more direct discussions about addressing those inequities.
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From page 54... ...
, which in Massachusetts translates into a gap of approximately $8,000 in revenues per full-time student. Flynn agreed with Schwartz about the importance of prioritizing funding community colleges to help them not only reach more students, but also be nimble and adjust to keep their offerings aligned with regional labor market demand.
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From page 55... ...
To advance that shift, employers need to be advocates for this type of training, which offer a more rapid way -- than four-year degree programs -- for people to get into high-paying STEMM jobs. Abrams reaffirmed that this is where community colleges can play a key role in a new workforce development strategy for the new normal.
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