Unlocking Pathways to the Middle Class: The importance of adequately funding Workforce Development in North Carolina

North Carolina’s investment in job training and other workforce development efforts has dwindled since the end of the Great Recession, despite the huge economic challenges facing the state’s workers and the need to prepare them for the higher-skill jobs that are the key to prosperity. By 2020, 61 percent of jobs in North Carolina will require some kind of postsecondary training or education.Unless the state puts more resources into creating a skilled, well-educated workforce, it will continue to fall behind the rest of the nation in career opportunities and family income.