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City shifts workforce measures toward outcomes; new director seen as model from Seattle
Summary
Economic & Workforce Development told supervisors it will move measures from process counts to outcomes, track job placement and retention, and emulate models used in Seattle and Boston; the department will convene focus groups on job-quality definitions.
Economic and workforce development staff told the Budget & Finance Committee they are retooling measures to focus on outcomes such as placement, retention and job quality. Jesse Blount summarized the office’s five-part mission and said the department wants to measure not just whether a business was contacted but "what that touch really means in terms of a level of service" and the outcomes for the business or job seeker.
Blount said the city will track program use of incentive programs, enterprise zone vouchers and the tax-increment investment directed to neighborhood economic organizations. He also highlighted the need to measure commercial vacancy rates in targeted corridors to assess neighborhood economic health.
On workforce specifics, the department pointed to Rhonda Simmons — the new workforce director who ran Seattle's neighborhood jobs initiative — as a model. Blount said Seattle and Boston provide templates for sector-driven systems that place and retain lower-income workers in higher-wage industries. When Supervisor Duffy urged a specific apprenticeship measure, Blount replied that the office will begin focus groups in January and work with community-based organizations and City College to define a common "job-quality" metric that captures wages, retention and career pathways.
Next steps: the department will assemble focus groups, continue data-development work and coordinate with the Controller’s Office on system-wide workforce outcomes for the February budget package.
