Here is one of those ‘chicken or the egg’ moments: what comes first, a skilled workforce or jobs to employ that workforce? This burning question is at the core of a strong partnership that has developed between Mission: Graduate and the Albuquerque Integration Initiative.
Mission: Graduate is a cradle-to-career education partnership that boldly aspires to add 60,000 new college degrees and certificates to Central New Mexico by 2020. Through their career exploration opportunities and workforce alignment with employers, Mission: Graduate aims to keep graduates in our state and make sure that they have the skills they need to succeed in the local workforce.
“What we found over the work so far,” said Executive Director Angelo Gonzales, “is that students who have parents who work at Intel, for example, or have well connected teachers know the pathways in. But students who don’t have these adults in their lives may not know about these opportunities.” Mission: Graduate is bridging that gap.
Over the past year they have been data wrangling in partnership with the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions. Together, they’ve developed a statewide jobs data system for student-specific opportunities. “We now know there are 39 employers involved and over 31,000 career exploration opportunities for students.” Angelo said, “There is potential for much more.”
Mission: Graduate is not in the business of influenceing job creation directly. But, Angelo commented, “We have the ability to influence job preparation. So by working together with Living Cities, we can ensure we are both successful with the objectives we set.” And fortunately for Albuquerque, as Living Cities President Ben Hecht commented on local Albuquerque show, the Morning Brew, “Living Cities is investing in both the chicken and the egg.”
CONNECT THE DOTS
COMMONALITIES:Focus on a developing strong partnerships, leveraging existing resources and building a deeply engaged and highly productive workforce
OPPORTUNITY: Mission: Graduate is working to prepare the next generation of Albuquerque’s workforce. Get involved here: http://missiongraduatenm.org/get-involved/
