Approximately 6.2 percent of U.S. employment (nearly 8.6 million people) worked in STEM jobs in May 2015, according to STEM Occupations: Past, Present, And Future from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).  Of those nearly 8.6 million people, nearly half (45 percent) are employed in computer occupations. In addition, seven of the 10 largest STEM occupations were related to computers and information systems including the largest STEM occupation – applications software developers (750,000 people).  STEM occupations provide nearly double the wages of non-STEM occupations.

With job growth for middle-skill level jobs slowing, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Austin-based nonprofit Center for Public Policy Priorities studied the nation’s best practices and surveyed regional workforce boards in Texas to determine how communities there are addressing the challenge. Their findings are detailed in the report, Regional Talent Pipelines: Collaborating with Industry to Build Opportunities in Texas, released last month.

Online-education provider Coursera has announced a new program that allows governments and nonprofits focused on workforce development to curate massive open online course (MOOCs) that align with labor market needs, and then make these courses instantly available to their constituents. Initial partners of Coursera for Governments & Nonprofits include the United States and six other nations:  Egypt, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Singapore.

Creative, digital, design and engineering occupations all have bright outlooks, along with architectural and green occupations, according to a recent report from Nesta, a global innovation foundation. Nesta took into account five major trends in mapping out how employment is likely to change in the future, and the implications for skills.

Since 1991, every state has added good jobs for workers without  four-year degrees in skilled-services industries like healthcare and finance, but fewer than half have added good jobs for similar workers in blue-collar industries like manufacturing, according to The Good Jobs Project, an initiative of The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

The Federal Reserve System has announced a new initiative intended to invest in America’s workforce and improve outcomes for both employers and workers.

This week we continue our series on state legislation pertaining to the innovation economy that has been enacted this year around the country. This second installment of the States of Innovation 2017 series deals with free tuition.

Last week, Google announced the launch of several efforts as part of its Grow with Google initiative – a five-year $1-billion plus plan to invest in nonprofits that specialize in training workers and helping new businesses get off the ground. Through this new plan, Google indicated it will work to close the world’s education and opportunity gaps.

Through its  2017 Assistance to Coal Communities (ACC 2017) initiative, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced $30 million in funding to assist locally-driven efforts to communities and regions severely impacted by the declining use of coal through activities and programs that support economic diversification, job creation, capital investment, workforce development, and re-employment opportunities.

President Barack Obama signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) into law on July 22 – a federal-wide reform effort designed to help job seekers access employment, education, training, and support services to succeed in the labor market and to match employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy. WIOA is the first legislative reform in 15 years of the public workforce system.

The National Governor’s Association (NGA) announced that it will provide grants, technical assistance and opportunities to align education and training systems with private sector needs in 14 states. Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia have been selected to receive support to build industry and education partnerships and optimize their workforce-oriented incentives.

New partnerships are needed between the IT community, government and institutions of higher learning to help bridge the American skills gap, according to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). In a letter to the president, PCAST notes that online solutions could provide people without secondary degrees with the training needed to fill high-demand IT jobs.

On September 28, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 850 into law, which establishes a pilot-program that will allow 15 of the state’s community colleges to launch low-cost bachelor’s degree programs in vocational fields of high demand by state industries.

The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it will award $450 million in job-driven training grants to nearly 270 community colleges across the country via the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) competitive grant program, which is co-administered by the DOL and Department of Education. The awards are to support community college-industry partnerships that will expand and improve education and career training programs offered at community colleges across the country.

If a concentration of highly skilled workers is an important leading indicator to more widespread economic growth, which regions are leading the way? Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to compare the educational attainment rates of the nation’s largest labor forces from 2005 to 2013, authors from the Cleveland State University Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs determine where America’s highest-skilled jobs are clustering.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a coalition of Chicago organizations and private businesses have announced plans to place at least 1,000 workers in manufacturing jobs. The mayor’s 2015 budget proposal, presented this week, includes $200,000 for the effort, with another $750,000 in funds and in-kind contributions from partners. Recent growth in the region’s manufacturing sector has created an urgent need for workers with specific training and apprenticeships, according to the mayor’s announcement.

Commercial knowledge and technology-intensive (KTI) industries produced nearly one-fourth of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012 ($3.8 trillion), according to a recently released National Science Foundation (NSF) Infobrief using Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Low-income students in the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD) will be among the first allowed to use federal student aid to enroll in programs offered by nontraditional educational providers. The providers — including coding bootcamps, online courses, and employer organizations — are partnering with accredited colleges or universities through an experimental program called Educational Quality through Innovation Partnerships (EQUIP). The U.S.

Due to the effectiveness of employer-sponsored training program, U.S. states are working to build partnerships with industry partners that leverage public resources to help develop a 21st century workforce that addresses specific industry needs. Over the last month, partnerships have been announced between states and key industry leaders including AGCO, CVS, Tesla, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Some of those collaborations are detailed below.

In case you missed it, the midterm elections were on Tuesday, resulting in Republicans taking control of Congress, several new governors, and five states endorsing minimum wage increases.

As part of President Obama’s recent executive order on immigration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently issued a number of new policies and regulations intended to capitalize on the skills of foreign workers, researchers and students. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy published an explanation of how the new rules will also be used to attract immigrant entrepreneurs through two new pathways to legal residency.

Although the percentage of college graduates with science and engineering (S&E) or S&E-related majors has increased, the proportion of college graduates employed in an S&E occupation has remained relatively unchanged at 10 percent since 1993, according to a recently released InfoBrief from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Engineering Statistics.

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced $3 million in planning assistance to communities impacted, or which may be impacted, by contractions in the coal economy.  The funds were made available in part due to the newly established Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER) initiative, a new interagency effort to assist communities negatively impacted by changes in the coal industry and power sector.

In 2010, 16.5 million individuals indicated that their job required at least a bachelor's degree level in a STEM field, according to a new report by the National Science Board (NSB) – Revisiting the STEM Workforce.  These positions included many positions that are not traditional thought of as STEM jobs such as sales, marketing, and management.