The nation’s economic recovery will be predicated on a massive and overdue investment in our nation’s infrastructure. But it will require advocacy and smart public policy to ensure that the estimated 3.5 million jobs created or saved by the federal stimulus package—and millions more created by the overall recovery—will go to communities that need them most.

Job training programs are vital in building job ladders to bring low-income residents into the 21st century workforce.  As long-standing bridges to economic opportunity for low-income residents, community colleges are particularly well-suited to train low-income Americans in the “middle skill” jobs that will be vital in the new workforce.

Our research and policy analysis demonstrates three key trends in California:

There is a current and rapidly growing unmet demand for community college-trained and/or certified workers for multiple occupations in the infrastructure sector.  Annually, there are approximately  42,000 “middle-skill” jobs created in the infrastructure sector in California.

While small in scale, community colleges have developed training programs which are successfully preparing students for work in infrastructure fields. In 2007-2008, only 6,371 students completed infrastructure sector-credentialed programs, although 182,197 California community college students successfully completed a course related to the infrastructure sector.

To bring these “middle skill” job training programs to scale, policy reforms at the national, state, and district level are necessary.

Moving forward, PolicyLink will work with partners to advocate for strengthening and expanding workforce training capacity in California’s community colleges, so that the state’s under-skilled workers can benefit from employment in the infrastructure, green jobs, and other high-growth sectors.