The US Department of Labor / Employment & Training Administration has announced the availability of approximately 20 grants of $100,000 to $500,000 to support technology-based learning  projects (PDF link). Successful grantees will need to target high-demand occupations (requiring labor market information and analysis) and demonstrate the existence of a regional partnership that brings together education providers, the workforce system, and employers.

As always, users of EMSI’s Strategic Advantage can contact us for free customer support regarding the use of labor market information to discover high-growth industries and occupations in their area.

A new report from the National Commission on Adult Literacy, produced in conjunction with the Charles Stewart Mott foundation, finds that the U.S. is actually less educated than it was a generation ago, and that this extremely poor adult literacy (and, presumably, numeracy) will result in a decline in economic competitiveness. The report calls for a huge expansion of adult literacy and workforce training programs to serve the tens of millions of adults who are unprepared to contribute to the American economy.

Link to press release, full report.

Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. (EMSI) will provide crucial data, modeling, and analysis to an economic impact study of New York City’s Watershed Land Acquisition Program. The study was initiated by the Delaware County Department of Economic Development, which fears that additional acquisitions made by the program will hamper development in the region.

Read on for the full press release.

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A socioeconomic impact study by EMSI has concluded that Schenectady County Community College benefits its region to the tune of $330 million, the majority of which is due to increased student earnings and productivity resulting from their education. This factor, which plays a key role in EMSI’s methodology, is virtually ignored by most college impact studies.

“This report details the significant contributions that SCCC has made to the vitality of our local economy and to the lives of our students. It is important that our county and state taxpayers, as well as our students, know that the investment they have made in SCCC for nearly 40 years, has resulted in long-term positive financial effects for them. The report was created by an independent national firm utilizing many sources of data relating to the College and its economic impact on the local area. We want to share this report with members of our community to let them actually see the return on their investment and that our students, faculty and staff continue to be essential contributors to the economic stability of the county,” said Gabe Basil, SCCC President.

Read the full story here.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released advance estimates for 2007 state gross products. Overall, GDP growth slowed or remained unchanged in all U.S. regions, while national GDP grew by 2% in 2007 compared to 3.1% in 2006.

Regions with the most state GDP growth in 2007 were:

• The Pacific Northwest & Rocky Mountain  (WA, OR, ID, + MT and UT)
• South Central (TX, OK, KS)
• Northern Plains (ND, SD, MN)

Low-growth regions included:

• The southern Far West (CA, NV, + AZ)
• The Great Lakes (WI, MI, IL, IN, OH)
• The Southeast (mixed — higher-growth states were NC, LA, KY, GA)
• The Northeast (except NY and DC)

(Note: these “regions” don’t necessarily match region boundaries or names used by the BEA.)

The slowdown was led by Construction and Finance & Insurance industries, consistent with the “credit crunch” widely discussed in the media in past months. CA, NV, AZ, and FL (all states that experienced a significant subprime-related housing bubble) experienced extreme deceleration in growth and in 2007 were in the mid to lower quintiles of all states.

The Kauffman Foundation has released a new report on increasing entrepreneurship in the US economy. The report’s foundational assumption is that entrepreneurs have created most of the new technologies and business models that have fueled our nation’s staggering productivity growth in the past few decades.

The central policy recommendations of the report are

1. “Ensuring a skilled workforce” by improving K-16 education and beyond in math, science, and entrepreneurial thinking, as well as making it easier for skilled and educated immigrants to work in the US.
2. “Reforming health care” to reduce costs and risks for the self-employed and small businesses.
3. “Promoting innovation” by reforming the patent system, increasing commercialization of university research, and monitoring foreign R&D activity for new ideas.
4. “Limiting overly burdensome regulation and liability litigation,” which have a greater effect on entrepreneurial firms than on large established corporations.

Read the full report here.

Workforce3one has an informative collection of documents that summarize the lessons of Workforce Innovation Networks (WINs) — an initiative to build capacity of employer organizations (such as chambers) to serve as market-driven workforce intermediaries. Documents include:

• Organizing and Supporting the Employer Role in Workforce Development: A Guide for Employer Organizations
• Creating Community Advancement Initiatives: A “How To” Manual
• Building Employer-Responsive Workforce Systems at the State Level: A “How To” Manual
• Providing Business Services: A “How To” Manual
• Partnering with One-Stop Career Centers-Strategies for Recruiting and Training Employees

Download the PDFs from Workforce3one’s page (free reg. req’d), or at Jobs for the Future.

The National Science Board has released a report and data tool that includes dozens of state-specific science & engineering indicators.

Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) is first and foremost a volume of record comprising the major high-quality quantitative data on the U.S. and international science and engineering enterprise. SEI is factual and policy-neutral. It does not offer policy options and it does not make policy recommendations. SEI employs a variety of presentational styles—tables, figures, narrative text, bulleted text, Web-based links, highlights, introductions, conclusions, reference lists—to make the data accessible to readers with different information needs and different information-processing preferences.

The data are “indicators.” Indicators are quantitative representations that might reasonably be thought to provide summary information bearing on the scope, quality, and vitality of the science and engineering enterprise. The indicators reported in SEI are intended to contribute to an understanding of the current environment and to inform the development of future policies. SEI does not model the dynamics of the science and engineering enterprise, and it avoids strong claims about the significance of the indicators it reports. SEI is used by readers who hold a variety of views about which indicators are most significant for different purposes.

SEI is prepared by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) under the guidance of the National Science Board (Board). It is subject to extensive review by outside experts, interested federal agencies, Board members, and NSF internal reviewers for accuracy, coverage, and balance.

The College Board’s National Commission on Community Colleges has released its final report, titled “Winning the Skills Race and Strengthening America’s Middle Class: An Action Agenda for Community Colleges.”

The report highlights the contributions of America’s community colleges and their potential for meeting key future challenges for our national economy, while at the same time bemoaning the fact that they are “the nation’s overlooked asset.”

It goes on to make some key recommendations, such as:

1. Federal reform legislation to modernize and reinvigorate colleges at a national level.
2. State and local reform efforts to improve funding and align K-20 systems.
3. College efforts to improve accountability metrics, degree production, and student access and success.

The Association of Community College Trustees, a long-time partner of EMSI/CCbenefits, has posted a statement applauding the report and reinforcing its conclusions.

Last summer, EMSI completed a study of the Walla Walla region’s wine production and tourism cluster. Recently the Wall Street Journal ran this article that focuses on the leadership of Walla Walla Community College, which is arguably responsible for the industry’s rapid growth and which has sparked numerous similar programs at other community colleges across the country.

Among the figures cited in the WSJ article is the stunning result of EMSI’s study: that the wine production and tourism industry has saved the area’s economy from stagnation or decline in the past decade, and that in the next decade over 15% of the area’s jobs will be directly or indirectly dependent on it.

The story is a stellar example of how community colleges can become leaders in economic development–with the right mix of foresight, initiative, passion, and (let’s admit it) a bit of good luck.

Read EMSI’s full report (PDF)

Walla Walla Community College, Institute for Enology and Viticulture

Walla Walla Wine Cluster Economic Development Project

Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance