There is a cluster of industry sectors known to create quality jobs: software coding, healthcare, engineering, teaching, and others. This article focuses on often overlooked sectors in any regional labor market that can generate quality employment, but not necessarily traditional jobs.
As detailed in our piece here last month, our learning about this stems from British government programs that extended public employment services to people needing "gig work" to fit around complexities in their lives (fluctuating medical issues, caregiving, or complex parenting needs, for example). Comparable work in the US was spearheaded by the City of Long Beach, CA, Workforce Development Board, and has since spread to other regions.
In Long Beach, I recall attending a meeting with the CEO of a home care provider, employing hundreds, but with only the haziest notion that workforce boards existed. Focused on 9-to-5 positions, they were irrelevant to the company's world of responsive service for diverse, unavoidably high turnover, clients often with unpredictable needs. But payrates averaged over $25 an hour and many of the workers were in high-priority groups; young, low income, women, and from communities of color.
What does it take for any workforce agency to extend its reach into sectors like this? Federal and state mandates will need to be factored in, alongside local needs. But prioritizing higher paying roles could lead to sectors including types of engineer that are often deployed on-call (HVAC or engine repairs for example), childcare (particularly for disabled kids typically outside the office-hours daycare model), home renovation (which often requires a particular skill for only a few days per project), events-related work, nursing, and creative sectors, which also tend to be project driven.
Apart from strategically picking sectors, a workforce agency may also need to focus on individuals who can work a minimum number of hours per week. Any region will contain residents whose medical issues, caregiving, studying, or other life commitments mean they only seek an average 6 or 8 hours employment a week. However bad their need for a better alternative to "gig work" apps, a board may regretfully find its WIOA mandates or priorities set by local elected officials compel it to focus exclusively on breadwinners who want perhaps 18+ hours a week but can't commit to traditional part time regular hours because of day-to-day unpredictability in their life circumstances.
The regional labor market platform used in UK programs and in Long Beach, CA reports work hours, pay gain, and so on in granular detail. It is equally precise in capturing skills gain. In one region we are currently immersed with the logistics sector, learning the diversity of training constantly required for a workforce that is largely outside regular hours, with demand unavoidably driven by peaks and troughs in volume and differing cargo types moving through warehouses.
The signs in today’s labor market point to quality work with good pay, pathways for progression, and additional economic growth awaiting workforce development boards that are ready to move beyond their traditional remit of workforces with predictable hours. Data generated by a local platform dedicated to regional workforce development can quickly tackle employers' pain points. In one city we saw a shortage of swimming pool attendants. Asking hospitality workers on the platform if they are a confident swimmer willing to undergo a city test, can quickly generate a list of provenly reliable workers used to dealing with the public who clearly merited investment in the Red Cross Pool Lifeguard certification by the city. This sort of cross-sector initiative can solve headaches for employers needing responsive workers, while gaining transferable skills, captured on the platform by very granular digital badges.
To discuss these kinds of possibilities for workforce agencies do register for a Learning Lab webinar with MUS on November 12th, 2025. A final article from us in December's Connector will look at how serving the nonstandard workforce could align with so many of the needs that emerged in 2025 for workforce leaders.
