By Kelsey Berkowitz
Most people agree that someone who works full-time should be able to live with financial security and dignity. Yet recent number-crunching from Oxfam shows how pervasive and inequitable poor job quality is in the United States. More than 39 million workers (or roughly one in four workers) earn less than $17 an hour, the bare minimum a single adult without children needs to live on. This affects historically disinvested groups at a disproportionate rate, as women and people of color are more likely to work in low-wage jobs.
The public sector has a role to play in improving the quality of jobs in our labor market, not least because it’s a major employer: more than 20 million people work for state and local governments and another 2 million work for the federal government. The public sector has the ability to directly and indirectly impact job quality through actions like raising the minimum wage or passing a living wage ordinance.
However, the effort to improve job quality must include private sector employers to have a significant and lasting impact across the economy.
The good news is that good jobs are good for businesses, not just for workers. The Good Jobs Institute found that improving job quality leads to lower employee turnover costs, higher sales and greater efficiency. Companies that focus on job quality make themselves more competitive for the long run.
Results for America (RFA) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working with state and local workforce boards and agencies across the country that are interested in using evidence-based strategies to promote economic mobility in their communities. State and Local Workforce Fellows first learn about foundational job quality and evidence-based procurement topics through a series of virtual learning sessions. Fellows then have an opportunity to take what they’ve learned and put it into action, working with RFA to implement projects that will boost equitable access to good jobs in their communities.
As part of this Fellowship, CareerSource Tampa Bay (CSTB) and PartnerTulsa each implemented projects to engage employers on what job quality is, how it can benefit employers, and strategies employers can use to improve job quality within their organizations. CareerSource Tampa Bay has served as the workforce board for Hillsborough County, Florida, and PartnerTulsa is the economic development authority for the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma. (In 2024, CSTB merged with a neighboring workforce board, and has since been renamed CareerSource Hillsborough Pinellas.)
CSTB’s interest in advancing job quality grew when the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration published Training and Employment Guidance Letter No. 07-22: Increasing Employer and Workforce System Customer Access to Good Jobs. This guidance letter defines what a good job is, explains why job quality matters and outlines how the public workforce development system should embed job quality into its employer partnerships and workforce training. The guidance letter lit a job quality spark at CSTB. Using what they learned from RFA’s virtual learning sessions, CSTB developed a Good Jobs Framework to communicate how the organization thinks about job quality to employers and jobseekers.
The Good Jobs Framework includes four pillars:
- Pay and Benefits
- Career Training and Advancement
- Workplace Culture and Environment
- Employee and Family Support
CareerSource Tampa Bay’s Job Quality Framework
The Good Jobs Framework provides the foundation for other components of CSTB’s multifaceted Good Jobs Initiative, including:
- An updated Job Order form and supplemental survey to collect better information from employers on the quality of their job openings. This information feeds into CSTB’s Good Jobs Dashboard, which displays job quality data for Hillsborough County employers and industries.
- An Employer Workshop to engage and educate local employers on job quality as a recruitment and retention strategy.
- A Job Seeker Workshop to educate job seekers on how to find a good job, recognizing that while there are commonalities, everyone’s idea of a good job is unique.
In June 2024, CSTB publicly launched its Good Jobs Initiative, including its Employer Job Quality Toolkit. Employers who join CSTB’s Good Jobs Initiative and ensure the jobs they offer are high quality will receive priority assistance from CSTB with On-the-Job Training, Paid Work Experience and Incumbent Worker Training. Those employers will also receive a Good Jobs Seal they can display, similar to a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
While small businesses and start-ups operate with thin margins, job quality can benefit these businesses too, and PartnerTulsa has encouraged local small business owners and entrepreneurs to seize this opportunity to become more competitive. Like CSTB, PartnerTulsa used what they learned in RFA’s virtual learning sessions to develop a webinar series and online hub, Small Business, Great Jobs, to educate small business owners and entrepreneurs about job quality topics like compensation and career development opportunities, and how they can embed job quality in their businesses from the beginning.
Through their projects, both CSTB and PartnerTulsa have sought to communicate to employers that job quality is win-win. It benefits the company’s bottom line and improves recruitment and retention. Not only that, CSTB and PartnerTulsa emphasized to employers that many strategies to improve job quality are low- or zero-cost, such as providing mentorship or communicating schedules in advance so workers have time to plan accordingly.
CSTB and PartnerTulsa offer a blueprint that other state and local economic and workforce development professionals can use when they engage employers on job quality. To get started on your own job quality journey, check out Results for America’s Job Quality Playbook.
This is a part of our blog series on job quality. Read the previous blogs here:
How to Make a Better Job: Our New Blog Series
Worker Empowerment Is Important for Job Quality. It’s Also Good for Business
The Unique Business Incentive Program Taking On Atlanta’s Economic Gaps
Maximizing Dollars for Good: How Local Governments Use Procurement to Advance Job Quality and Equity
➡️ Want more information on RFA’s job quality initiatives? Contact [email protected].
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