Centering work: Integration and diffusion of workforce development within the U.S. manufacturing extension network

Arbeitspapier

As the U.S. economy rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic, strategies that promote long-term transformation toward high-quality jobs will be critical. This includes workplace-improving interventions that enable employers to upgrade existing jobs, often while enhancing their own competitive position. This paper focuses on the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a national network of federally funded centers that support small and medium-sized manufacturing firms. We document the range of workforceand workplace-enhancing strategies that MEP centers have adopted since the network's inception in the mid-1990s. While workforce development is unevenly implemented across today's MEP network, leading centers within the network are devising transformative strategies that shape underlying business practices in ways that can improve the quality of front-line manufacturing jobs. The pandemic recovery, along with federal commitment to reenergize domestic supply chains, presents an opportunity to establish NISTMEP as a national workforce-development leader while also strengthening localized institutional partnerships to center that effort on inclusive economic development and recovery.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Upjohn Institute Working Paper ; No. 22-371

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes ; Labor Standards: Working Conditions
• Subject: Industrial policy ; industry studies ; economic development policy ; workforce development policy

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Lowe, Nichola ; Schrock, Greg ; Wilson, Matthew D. ; Rabbani, Rumana ; Forbes, Allison
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
• (where): Kalamazoo, MI
• (when): 2022

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.17848/wp22-371
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/283966
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET