New careers for low-wage workers

Ohio companies need trained workers and Ohio workers need good jobs. That’s the simple premise behind two programs that link employers’ needs and workforce training opportunities to help workers make the transition from factory jobs to knowledge-based career

Ohio Bridges to Opportunity Initiative

The Ohio Bridges to Opportunity Initiative helps adults who earn low wages gain the skills needed to earn a living wage in today's service-sector economy. A partnership between KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the Ford Foundation, Ohio Bridges to Opportunity Initiative strengthens state policy and practice to help employers, community colleges, and adult career centers better serve the educational needs of adults who earn low wages.

Career Pathways

Career Pathways seeks to connect adult educational programs with employer needs, including on-the-job training, and support services that enable non-traditional students to combine school and work. The goal is to provide adult students with the opportunity to advance to better jobs while improving Ohio's economic base.

New careers and you

Green jobs

Greener Pathways: Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy explores the kind and quality of jobs in the clean energy economy; the skills needed to fill these jobs; and how existing businesses and their workers can move to the center of the clean energy economy.

Jobs for older workers

In August, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded $10 million to organizations that connect older workers to jobs. About $1 million each was given to 10 organizations to retrain workers age 55 and older for jobs in high-growth industries such as healthcare and green jobs. The organizations were in Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Adult classes, a la carte

Community colleges have long tailored courses to meet the demands of local employers, but Kellogg Community College’s Regional Manufacturing Technology Center in Battle Creek, Mich., has done away with traditional classroom-bound courses altogether and, instead, has cut up its offerings into more than 1,200 individual skills, or “modules,” that students can take whenever they wish on a walk-in basis.