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 second in the series—describes innovations advanced by organizations participating in the James Irvine Foundation’s Better Careers initiative. Developments that help connect California workers to good jobs and advancement opportunities include substantive investments by employers, the emergence of new avenues for entering and connecting with growing industries, and intermediaries’ efforts to scale innovative approaches.