Our Projects
Past Employment Projects
- Linking Education to Careers in Northeast Mississippi
- A Partnership Model for Better Jobs
- A Time of Reckoning: Testing the Will for Change in the Mississippi Delta
- Career Pathways for a Green South
- Creating a New Strategic Vision for the N.C. Rural Center
- Franklin/Southampton County Development
- Latino Pathways
- Middle Border Forward
- Mississippi Workforce Development
- Mistakes to Success: Applying Roadmap Tools
- National Fund for Workforce Solutions
- North Carolina JobLink Career Center System
- Program for the Rural Carolinas
- Redesigning the North Carolina Employment and Training System
- Women in Electronics
- Workforce Alliance in Mississippi
Mississippi Workforce Development was an MDC policy research and analysis project designed to increase Mississippi's workforce and economic competitiveness.
In 2003, Mississippi's major public workforce development resources were split between two different oversight entities: the State Workforce Investment Board handled federal WIA resources and the State Workforce Development Council handled state funding for a community and junior college system of one-stop workforce centers. This arrangement resulted in a lack of coordination and expensive duplication of effort, ultimately affecting the state's ability to ensure the availability of a competitive workforce.
Through a contract with the Employment Training Division of the Mississippi Development Authority, MDC recommended forming a Joint Task Force comprising members of the two workforce oversight bodies to explore how to improve workforce system effectiveness and to make recommendations to the governor and state legislature.
MDC then worked with the Joint Task Force. Findings and recommendations are published in Generations of Progress - A Future of Our Choice, a report to the governor and state legislature.
The report was used to inform landmark legislation, The Mississippi Comprehensive Workforce Training and Education Consolidation Act of 2004.
go deeper
For more information on MDC and Mississippi Workforce Development, contact Julie Mooney.