2025 Family Centered Employment Survey Report

NAWB convened a taskforce of workforce visionaries to reveal disconnects in practitioner-led dialogues and to unmask barriers to centering racial equity in the workforce development ecosystem. This report reflects the earnest efforts of workforce stakeholders and the expertise of national experts aiming to build an inclusive workforce development system.

You don’t have to set out to create an upskilling program on your own. Workforce development boards across the country offer services and support that can help you attract and retain the skilled employees that your business needs. Teaming up with the National Association of Workforce Boards, UpSkill America developed a new tool that explains just how these organizations can help you.

The intent of this paper is to identify ways that Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) can be used by the workforce development system in new and creative ways that provide more efficient routes for adult students to acquire credentials that are valued in the labor market.

It is the fifth and final phase of the “Workforce Data Systems Project,” an initiative to better understand how technology is currently being used to meet the goals and expectations of WIOA, and to facilitate sharing and collaboration between NASWA and NAWB members on best innovation practices.

A rapidly tightening labor market is forcing employers across the country to consider workers they once might have turned away, and workforce boards are looking at alternatives to meet the shortage of skilled labor. In response, the National Association of Workforce Boards partnered with the Council of State Governments Justice Center to conduct a survey of state and local workforce boards to learn how they are using Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and other funding to provide training and employment services to formerly incarcerated individuals to help them succeed in the workforce.

Workforce boards and the apprenticeship system share the same fundamental goals: they connect workers to economic opportunity while meeting the skill needs of employers in high-demand industries.