Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19 Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series (2021) / Chapter Skim
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2 Birmingham, Alabama
2 Birmingham, Alabama
Pages 5-28
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From page 5... ...
"It is clear that efforts to rebuild our workforce must include intentional actions to root out racism and create inclusive conditions to support diversity and equity in all job sectors," said Carpenter. "As we continue these conversations, we want to make sure that piece of this struggle is front and center." This workshop began with sessions that presented data on the economic outlook, labor force, educational attainment, and demographic data for the Birmingham metropolitan area, and discussed Birmingham's economic outlook prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic and its investments in workforce training programs.
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From page 6... ...
Demographics and Educational Attainment Andreason said that the city of Birmingham entered the COVID-19 pandemic with greater economic stresses than the city's suburbs were expe riencing. For example, the poverty rate in the city proper was 25.2 percent versus 14 percent for the larger Birmingham metropolitan area, and median wages for people 16 years and older was $30,014 in the city compared to $36,427 for the metro area.1 He noted that while Birmingham city is majority Black, the metro area is majority white (Figure 2-1)
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From page 7... ...
"We know that workers that have a high school degree or less are significantly challenged and that many of the job losses have been concentrated in lower-skilled, lower-educational-expectation jobs in the crisis," said Andreason. Unemployment Data Metro Birmingham's unemployment rate in 2019 was below 4 percent, which put it among the nation's metropolitan areas with the lowest unemployment rates.
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From page 8... ...
. SOURCE: Andreason slides 5 and 6, based on the 2019 American Community Survey single-year estimates, are available at https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press kits/2020/acs-1year.html.
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Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program for nontraditional workers, part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, than were on traditional unemployment.
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a significant portion of the claims in Alabama were in jobs that are difficult to do remotely. In terms of the risk of permanent job loss arising from the pandemic, he explained that the Atlanta Federal Reserve's analysis suggested that the total risk of employment loss in Birmingham was lower than for other southern cities because of its mix of employers.
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From page 11... ...
"About one in five households in the city of Birmingham access the internet on their cellphone only," said Andreason. "Imagine doing work, school, or job training on a cellphone only." In other words, he said, internet access is important, but so, too is the hardware people use to interface with the internet when thinking about developing learning and work platforms and designing interventions to help people navigate the current crisis.
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From page 12... ...
• Birmingham has significant assets upon which to build an eco nomic development strategy, identify labor market opportunities, and accomplish something significant for the city. Parilla explained that a new mechanism called Prosper Birmingham, established by a group of local leaders and funders, was used to carry out a market assessment of the economic conditions of the region and identified key factors affecting the situation.
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From page 13... ...
One of Pack Health's tasks is to develop a workforce of health advisors, a position for which no college or university in the country offers a degree. Instead, the company recruits community health workers, registered dieticians, social workers, nutritionists, and other people from an allied
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As this field of health advisor has evolved and enough people have taken this career path, the National Board of Medical Examiners created a curriculum for certification as a health and wellness coach.4 Pack Health has adopted this certification, and, in addition to coursework, requires all its students to coach for 1,000 hours before becoming eligible to take the certification exam. Singh noted that since this program is not the company's primary source of income, it has set the price of enrollment to be the most affordable in the job training marketplace, allowing displaced workers to make a career change or sharpen their skills.
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From page 15... ...
He called on the federal government to use this historic labor market crisis as an opportunity to invest 10 times as much as usual in workforce development so that institutions can reach people on the scale needed to address the sheer number of displaced workers. Singh noted the need for more micro-credentialing opportunities that students could earn while still in school to short-circuit the need to further train an individual after they have received their college degree.
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From page 16... ...
Birmingham Strong Birmingham Strong's flagship program is the Birmingham S ervice Corps, launched in May 2020, and its major funder is the city of Birmingham, though all its activities are designed to be reimbursable through the CARES Act. Fritzberg noted that Birmingham residents were already experiencing extreme levels of poverty -- nearly half of the city's families lived in poverty before the pandemic -- and many neighborhoods in the city are no stranger to some of the dire unemployment numbers seen now, particularly neighborhoods that are majority Black.
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From page 17... ...
Toward that end, the Birmingham Strong model leverages COVID relief and recovery funding toward earn-and-learn workforce development rooted in employer partnerships and targeted toward community need. The program focuses on workers between ages 32 and 55 and could evolve in ways that more closely align it with the formal workforce ecosystem and a regional workforce development strategy.
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From page 18... ...
One thing these data illustrated was that the city did not have many residents with the digital skills needed to thrive in the 21st century job market, or residents with the skills to meet the projected six-fold increase in computer science jobs that would be available over the next 10 years and would require a bachelor's degree. This realization mobilized Jackson and several colleagues to approach Apple and ask them to help make Birmingham the epicenter for education, technology, training, and coding.
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The program's demographics mirror those of the city of Birmingham. Wykle also highlighted the fact that Innovate Birmingham has played a key role in shaping regional workforce development efforts in the IT realm along with its nonprofit and K-12 partners and in supporting students when they go to one of the regional institutions of higher education and then into the working world.
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From page 20... ...
She also credited several of the program's employer partners who designated scholarships targeted at people of color who lost jobs because of the pandemic to participate in Innovate Birmingham. Discussion When asked how Birmingham Strong's Service Corps was going to move forward once emergency federal funding to deal with the pandemic ends, Fritzberg said the program has some generous private sector philanthropic supporters in addition to its CARES Act funding.
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Both Harmon and Wykle noted in closing that the pandemic has provided a way of focusing in a singular manner on addressing inequities, though it is still unclear whether these programs are helping to reduce inequities. HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMMING FOR THE BIRMINGHAM WORKFORCE The workshop's final panel session featured five speakers from institutions of higher education in Alabama: Jarralynne Agee, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Miles College; Cynthia Anthony, interim president of Lawson State Community College; Pam Benoit, senior vice president of academic affairs and provost at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; Guin Robinson, associate dean of economic development at Jefferson State Community College; and Daniel Coleman, president of Birmingham Southern College.
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From page 22... ...
The univer sity has also partnered with the McWane Center -- Birmingham's science museum -- to provide full-day childcare and high-quality programming in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, Robinson described Jefferson State Community College as an institution that serves a four-county area in central Alabama.
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From page 23... ...
Miles College is also creating certificate programs so that its students can build extra skills. Lawson State Community College, explained Anthony, has chosen to use the pandemic as an opportunity for reinvention and to reimagine itself as an education and training entity.
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In the day's final panel presentation, Coleman provided a brief history of Birmingham Southern College, which was founded as a liberal arts college in 1856 as an institution that would serve the community and help develop a future workforce and leadership for the community. He then discussed data showing the top five "hard-to-fill" jobs in the Birmingham metropolitan area that require a bachelor's degree, both pre-COVID-19 and during the pandemic: registered nurse, sales representative, software developer/engineer, business development manager, and retail store manager.
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She noted that many Miles College graduates become the first Black person to accept certain positions in some companies or institutions, whether in Birmingham or elsewhere, and they have the skills and talent to perform in that environment. Responding to a question about creating authentic regional connections with employers to create pathways into careers and work-based learning experiences, Agee said that institutions of higher education need businesses to work together on building bridges that will help students succeed in the academic environment and then in the work environment.
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From page 26... ...
They need access to resources now," she stated. She applauded the collaborative community efforts that enabled Birmingham Strong to place over 300 residents -- mostly Black and female individuals -- in various jobs, and Birmingham Promise's commitment to youth development and its investment in the marriage of workforce and educational experiences for young people that will ultimately shape their future and the future of Birmingham.
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From page 27... ...
That interplay means that workforce development efforts should not just be about getting people into jobs, but getting them into well-paying, family-sustaining jobs in an inclusive and equitable manner. Reflecting on the first panel's message that resources are important, Flynn agreed that an increase in federal investment in workforce development is critical, but also suggested that innovative financing models are important given the likelihood that federal investment will not be enough.
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From page 28... ...
"We need to figure out how we are connecting to Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding and maximizing CARES Act funding," he said, while also noting that Alabama was one of eight states selected for Reimagining Workforce grants to help people dis placed by the pandemic identify work opportunities. He noted that while there is a great deal of action in the community, translating that action into an organized and systematic way of on-boarding folks who have been hurt by the pandemic disproportionately -- women and people of color -- should be at the forefront of these strategies going forward.
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