NOVA in the News

Sunnyvale Quarterly Report
October 24, 2008

Local efforts to manage anticipated workforce crisis

NOVA, the City of Sunnyvale’s Department of Employment Development, which is dedicated to serving job seekers and employers throughout northern Santa Clara County, is leading efforts to proactively manage what promises to be the beginning of an emerging workforce crisis within Silicon Valley.

The regional employment situation can be characterized by escalating instability accentuated by the economic challenges currently experienced throughout the nation. In fact, due to the nature of the industries and occupations that drive our regional economy, the issues faced by Silicon Valley may prove to be more challenging than in any other region of the nation or world.

Skills Disparity

In Silicon Valley’s rapidly evolving innovation economy, the skill sets associated with the jobs being created do not tend to correlate well with those of the jobs that become obsolete through technological advancement or relocation to other parts of the world. This mismatch of skills available versus skills needed increases the difficulty in ensuring employment for both individuals and businesses throughout the region.

In addition to this skills disparity, the impending retirement of the Baby Boom generation is expected to have a serious impact on Silicon Valley’s knowledge-based economy. Employers are requiring greater skill sets and higher levels of education, necessitated by technological innovation. In this era when high school graduation rates and college entrance rates are agonizingly low, there is great concern that the younger generations of workers will be ill-prepared to fill the holes left by baby boomers leaving the workforce.

While businesses do what they can to adapt to rapid market changes, workers experience greater irregularity of employment. It is apparent that risk and uncertainty must be managed if economic progress is to be maintained for individuals, businesses, and the community as a whole. This sustained churn requires a commitment from the region’s leaders to realign workplaces, institutions, and infrastructure to new economic and social realities. To this end, NOVA, in collaboration with related organizations in San Mateo County and southern Santa Clara County, was recently awarded a substantial grant by the U.S. Department of Labor to facilitate the development of a comprehensive regional workforce strategic plan for all of Silicon Valley.

A Regional Solution

NOVA has contracted with Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a local, nonpartisan, public-private partnership, to coordinate this initiative. The intention of this type of federal grant is to integrate economic and workforce activities and demonstrate that talent development can drive economic transformation in regional economies. NOVA Director Mike Curran explained that “This effort is a recognition that we can’t solve this impending crisis alone and it is through the commitment of the many stakeholders involved in workforce development, which include business, education and training organizations, organized labor, community-based organizations, government, elected officials, and economists, that we will find the best solutions.”

The contract award to Joint Venture was inspired by a special workforce analysis in Joint Venture’s 2008 Silicon Valley Index that noted the challenges facing the region’s mid-wage workers. “The challenges facing our workforce are formidable and will continue to impact the mid-range earners unless we take decisive action,” said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of Joint Venture.

Curran said the initiative seeks to improve access to skill building, adult education and training, and new alliances that link job seekers, employers, educators, and labor market information providers. It will also develop a new resourcing model that consists of investments from a number of benefactors. The goals of this project are aligned with and represent the next evolution of the California EDGE (Education, Diversity and Growth in the Economy) Campaign, an initiative dealing with many of these same concerns at the statewide level. In light of the region’s technological focus, this new regional initiative has therefore been dubbed EDGE 2.0.

For more information about EDGE 2.0 contact Mike Curran at 408-730-7240 or by e-mail at mcurran@novaworks.org.

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