Millions of working Californians are unable to fulfill their families’ basic needs. Automation is likely to eliminate many of their jobs by 2022, and higher-paying jobs that require specialized skills, while plentiful, are beyond their reach. Therefore, there’s an urgent need to redesign the state’s education and training systems to help people get the skills they need to secure family-supporting jobs. A series of briefs from JFF examines innovations developed and advanced by grantees of Irvine’s Better Careers initiative that help connect California workers to good jobs and advancement opportunities.

This brief—the first in the series—describes the challenges facing people in low-wage jobs and examines the shifts in relationships between employers, education and training providers, community agencies, and workers that will be required to keep up with the rapid pace of economic change and technological innovation.