The San Diego Workforce Partnership is working to share their labor market research throughout the region. They collaborated with the County of San Diego and the Imperial County Community College Association to conduct the research to identify five distinct and extensive growing sectors in San Diego. They created poster boards for each sector highlighting the data, career pathways, education, income potential, and more. They launched the boards at Qualcomm’s Thinkabit Lab and found teachers, principals, and superintendents who visited asking how to get a copy. With financial support from local, public, and private entities (County of San Diego Board of Supervisors, City of San Diego, Manpower, and Jerome’s Furniture), they have now printed 350 sets of boards and given them to local middle and high schools in 10 school districts, community colleges, many community-based organizations, and all of their career center locations.                                                         

In addition, they created an “Essential Skills” board which describes “soft skills” or the critical interpersonal skills needed to succeed in the workplace. They then translated all of the boards into Spanish which aided in reaching thousands more in the region. With an estimated 2,500 boards on display, they have created thriving communities by putting actionable labor market information directly in the hands of job seekers needing to know which sectors are hiring and the skills needed. This directly benefits students who can now see career pathways that they might not have known existed prior.