Diversity & Inclusion

What local workforce development strategies actually work?

November is Workforce Development Month of Technical.ly's editorial calendar. Tell us: What stories should we write about technical training, apprenticeships and reskilling?

Training internal employees for new jobs can help with retention. (Photo via WavebreakMediaMicro - stock.adobe.com)

It’s common knowledge in the tech world that there are more open tech positions than skilled workers to fill them. But what’s being done, locally, to prepare people who need jobs to get them? And importantly, what’s actually working to reduce the barrier to entry for folks who have traditionally been shut out of the sector’s riches?

This November, as part of our editorial calendar, we’re devoting extra coverage to workforce development, or how people are being trained for careers of the future, and today. We’ll discuss opportunities and challenges with training and apprenticeship programs — work that could guide technologists with nontraditional backgrounds into their first software engineering jobs — as well as retraining programs to teach tech companies’ existing employees the new skills they need to advance in their careers.

Yes, this might include looks at how AI is changing (or eliminating) jobs. But we also want to examine strategies that will help reduce stubborn poverty rates, and partnerships between between industry, nonprofits and government that ease access.

A few relevant stories we’ve published in recent months:

Have an idea for a story, or an organization we should look into, or a report we should read, or an expert we should talk to? Let us know:

Contact us

Find our reporting here once we get rolling. And hey, if you have ideas for editorial topics we should cover in 2020, let us know via that big orange button above, too. Some ideas of ours include Early Employees (as in, how the first few hires shape a startup), Hiring Trends, Gender Diversity in Tech and Ecosystem Development, for instance.

P.S. A followup from last month’s theme announcement: The first three editions of the inaugural RealLIST Engineers has published in Philly, D.C. and Baltimore! Check them out here. We’ll celebrate the honorees — and crown the winners of the 2019 Technical.ly Awards, too — for Philly and D.C. at events in December. Check out more info (and vote) here.

This editorial article is a part of Technical.ly's Workforce Development Month of our editorial calendar.

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

19 tech and entrepreneurship events to check out before the holidays

EDA officials are ‘hopeful’ Tech Hubs program will live on under Trump

AI is being used in more and more of the hiring process, especially at high-volume companies

This Week in Jobs: 27 hot open roles to warm up a frosty career

Technically Media