Not Just Getting By: The New Era of Flexible Workforce Development

Not Just Getting By chronicles groundbreaking thinking and research on new and innovative workforce development initiatives to create flexible and collaborative programs and policies. Author Mary Gatta builds on extensive interviews and focus groups with 128 women enrolled in a U.S. Department of Labor pilot program in New Jersey focusing on how they attain education through online courses while working, raising their children, and dealing with the many demands on their lives. The book addresses three main areas: It engages current policy debates demonstrating how online learning and other forms of flexible learning opportunities will reorganize the way federal and state governments deliver skills training, especially working poor single mothers, within the context of Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and other legislated workforce development programs in the 21st century. It explores the development of the program and qualitatively details the experiences of the women as they spend a year receiving online learning courses. It explores how to rethink workforce development so that online learning for low wage workers and other innovative programs can be successful. As both a piece of scholarship and a case study in successful policy development, this text will be a useful supplement for courses in the sociology of labor, women's studies, or adult education. It will also serve policymakers and others who are looking for a model of training and skills delivery that actually works.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 A Brief Introduction to Workforce Systems Chapter 2 The New Workforce Challenge: Finding the Skills to Move Up and Out of Poverty Chapter 3 Workforce Development and Welfare Policy: Explored Through an Intersectional Lens Chapter 4 Policy and Programs: Single Working Poor Mothers and Online Learning Chapter 5 Rethinking Workforce Development: Reflections from a State Commissioner of Labor Chapter 6 Concluding Remarks: Development an Agenda for Low-Wage Workers

About the Author :
Mary L. Gatta is Director of Workforce Policy and Research at the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. Kevin P. McCabe served as Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner for New Jersey's Department of Labor and Workforce Development from 2002-2004.

Review :
Not Just Getting By stresses the need for workforce development policies that not only acknowledge the many barriers to education and job training facing low-wage workers, but that are also fashioned to minimize or eliminate those barriers. As this book makes clear, workforce development must be a priority for state and federal policymakers if the United States is to remain a leader in the global economy – and if America wants all Americans to have a shot at economic self-sufficiency and a better life. After all the talk we have heard about family values, this book builds on New Jersey's success to show a clear way that government can actually work to value families. This book outlines how a flexible workforce can help all Americans reach economic self-sufficiency by training on their own terms and on their own time. For too long now, policymakers have looked at workforce development as though all workers were the same, with the same needs and the same problems. Not Just Getting By documents how policymakers must step outside of this "one-size-fits-all box". The authors show that workforce development policies that are sensitive to the needs of all kinds of workers-including ones with family responsibilities-will be more effective in the long run in moving individuals toward stable employment. This book is a must read for those interested in bringing workforce development policy into the 21st century.