The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (Chamber Foundation) is dedicated to strengthening America’s longterm competitiveness. This effort includes educating the public on the conditions necessary for businesses and communities to thrive while highlighting emerging issues and creative solutions that will shape the future. The Chamber Foundation’s relevant initiatives covered in this report include Talent Pipeline Management, Job Data Exchange, and the T3 Innovation Network, which includes learning and employment records. These innovations provide tools, resources, and communities of practice to improve communication and alignment of in-demand skills with the needs of stakeholders in an evolving talent marketplace: learners and workers; employers; and education, training, and credentialing providers. This report addresses the potential roles of these initiatives in supporting opportunity populations and the workforce organizations that serve them. Based on interviews with organizations that serve opportunity populations, this report provides guidance to help stakeholders and communities understand emerging technologies that can support individuals in navigating the labor market. Recommendations are intended to promote useful technologies, processes, partnerships, and governance strategies without constructing or perpetuating barriers to opportunity.
“Opportunity populations” refers to people who have had limited access to educational and professional opportunities and who face barriers to employment and career advancement. They may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Opportunity youth (young adults ages 17 to 24 who are out of school or out of work)
- Members of the LGBTQ community
- Members of immigrant or refugee populations
- Formerly incarcerated individuals
- Members of indigenous communities
- People with disabilities (physical and/or cognitive)
- People without a high school diploma
- People with limited English proficiency
- People who are (or who have been) homeless
It is also important to note that these individuals often experience barriers due to identities that exist at the intersection of these characteristics.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put the reality of structural intersectionality (i.e., how the combination of a person’s or group’s social identities or categorizations create overlaps and interconnections in discrimination and privilege) into stark relief. For example, because of their over-representation in service hospitality jobs, Hispanic women have experienced a 21% decline in employment—the most acute job loss recorded of any demographic group during the pandemic.1 Understanding the roadblocks that limit the recovery prospects of one of these women requires attention to the individual barriers she may be facing (e.g., a woman, Hispanic, a parent). To cultivate equity in a workforce context, employers, training providers, and job seekers will need tools and pro-equity strategies that explicitly consider the intersectionality of inequality to effectively frame the employment experiences of marginalized groups.
