Faced with a quickly evolving labor market in which 92 percent of jobs require digital skills, state leaders are hurrying to ensure that both new and existing public investments are effectively preparing workers with in-demand skills.
Meanwhile, workforce and education advocates want to be certain that policymakers incorporate established best practices in workforce development as part of their digital skills policies.
And stakeholders across both public and private sectors are looking for clear, succinct data to illustrate the challenges and opportunities facing US workers and businesses when it comes to technology.
National Skills Coalition has put together this blog post as an accessible resource for advocates and policymakers who want to understand the data resources they can draw on to design good policies and make the case for the importance of investing in digital skills.
As of last month, all 50 states have submitted their Digital Equity Capacity Grant proposals to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). This summer, roughly $800 million in federal DE funds will begin flowing to the states, who will then regrant it to local partners.
A portion of the $42 billion in federal Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds are already flowing to support broadband projects, which can include workforce development and education. BEAD subgrantees will primarily be Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Simultaneously, some states are using American Rescue Plan Act funding to support digital skill-building programs: Tennessee has devoted nearly $28 million in ARPA funding for its Digital Skills, Employment, and Workforce Development grants. Others are creatively using federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) discretionary funding: California is dedicating $9 million to support skill-building (including digital skills) for farmworkers.
At the state level, established higher education and workforce programs such as Virginia’s FastForward, Indiana’s Next-Level Jobs, and Ohio’s TechCred are already providing important investments in digital skills. And new upskilling initiatives are rapidly emerging thanks to the workforce demand created by more than a trillion dollars in federal clean energy, semiconductor manufacturing, and other infrastructure investments. Growing demand for workers with cybersecurity and/or AI-related skills will only increase the importance of digital skill-building opportunities.
Understanding the baseline that individuals are starting from can help policymakers and advocates alike to accomplish their goals. Among the data resources available to state leaders: NSC’s new 2-page fact sheets on digital skills. These are currently available for 18 states, with more in the works. (Scroll to the bottom of the page to view the fact sheets.)
NSC strongly encourages states to established standardized, measurable indicators to assess the outcomes of digital skills programs. Simply counting the outputs (that is, numbers of classes attended or number of individuals served) will not give states meaningful information about the observable changes – that is, the outcomes – that funding has wrought.
Instead, states should make sure that every programmatic grantee is required to report on a short, clear set of outcome measures. See specific recommended measures in our February 2024 blog post, which also contains more detail on available data sources.
Having firsthand data about the demand for digital skills in a state or local area can be a powerful tool in combination with the workforce digital skills data described above. Commonly used mechanisms for data gathering include:
