Responsibilities

The Office of Workforce Alignment is responsible for providing a variety of data and analytic metrics used to inform strategic policy related to the alignment of Alabama’s educational resources with workforce needs.  This includes understanding the differences across Alabama’s seven workforce regions and expanding place-based strategies that serve the education and workforce needs of our communities.  The responsibilities of the office include:

• Developing regional profile reports for the seven workforce regions throughout Alabama.  These profile reports highlight differences by region that include educational attainment and workforce characteristics for prime working age adults (25 to 64).
• Developing an employment outcomes report that matches public college and university graduation data with state workforce data to determine retention and income metrics for Alabama graduates.
• Contributing to the agency’s Retain Alabama survey that ascertains the workforce aspirations of recent college and university graduates.

Regional Workforce Profiles Released as Tool to Help Alabama Reach Attainment Goal

Montgomery, Ala – Under the leadership of Governor Kay Ivey, Alabama set the ambitious attainment goal of adding 500,000 credentialed Alabamians to the labor force, surpassing the national labor force participation rate and returning to pre-pandemic employment levels. Reaching these goals requires understanding the differences across Alabama’s seven workforce regions and expanding place-based strategies that serve the education and workforce needs of our communities.

Creating opportunities and empowering students for success begins with a thorough knowledge of the current workforce landscape as well as factors that impact access to education and employment. Through an Equity Leadership Acceleration Grant from the Lumina Foundation, the Alabama Commission on Higher Education and Equivolve Consulting, in partnership with the Alabama Workforce Council and the Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Transformation, collaborated to produce a tool with key data points for each region, which will provide a foundation for collaboration, shared resources and enhanced communication among stakeholders in order to achieve the state’s attainment goal.

“Growing Alabama’s workforce is essential for our state’s prosperity, and it is why I set the goal of adding 500,000 more skilled Alabamians to the labor force”, said Governor Kay Ivey. “I am proud of the great work going on throughout the state, and these Regional Workforce Profiles will help broaden our efforts. I offer my sincerest thanks to the Lumina Foundation for selecting Alabama for this opportunity.”

“Postsecondary learning has never mattered more than it does right now to our state,” said Jim Purcell, executive director, Alabama Commission on Higher Education. “The workforce profiles will serve as valuable guides for developing new certificates and degrees to meet the needs of employers and provide pathways for Alabamians into those middle- and high-skill jobs that employers are looking to fill.”

“As we continue building out our skills-based hiring programs and initiatives, these regional profiles will enable us to further understand the complexities of each region and more effectively reach our target audience,” said Alabama Workforce Council Chairman Tim McCartney. “This important data will help business and industry, together with the state, break down barriers and promote the credential and competency-based career pathways model.”

“The workforce profiles allow us finally, to gain a more in-depth understanding of what makes up a particular region’s workforce, it’s strengths and weaknesses and gives us an amount of insight that we’ve not had before,” said Ed Castile, Deputy Secretary of Commerce. “The information is invaluable in helping us plan the next steps to achieving Governor Ivey’s attainment goal.”

“Developing these profiles is a critical step toward adding 500,000 credentialed Alabamians to the labor force”, said Glenn Love, CEO of Equivolve. “Not only do the profiles offer a window into the state’s workforce, they provide the Ivey administration with an opportunity to develop strategies that are data-driven, responsive, and equitable.”

“This is going to provide the regional workforce councils a framework to connect the dots and help all partners understand overall goals are and how to get there, said Donny Jones, Executive Director of the Region 3 Workforce Development Council/West AlabamaWorks. “The K-12 education, community college and 4-year university systems are the bedrock of our workforce efforts, but these profiles will also help connect the non-profit and religious organizations as the wrap around services they provide are key to moving the needle and helping people obtain their career goals. It will take all of us working together to achieve this.”

Each regional profile contains background information, an education snapshot, a workforce snapshot, employment access and regional key findings. They can be viewed  at https://www.ache.edu/wp-content/Workforce/Regionalprofiles.pdf

For additional information Go to Alabama Works.