TRAINING AND RETAINING
Strengthening the Erie County Workforce from the Bottom Up By Zaque Evans, Senior Economic Development Specialist, Erie County
W
hen the federal Health Professions Opportunity Grant program (HPOG) expired in 2021, Erie County realized the benefits of training lower-income residents in healthcare fields and opted to continue a fully county funded healthcare training program. To accomplish this, we launched the Erie County Healthcare Careers program (ECHC). In a short time, ECHC has proven to be a win-win-win as it provides tuition and fees assistance, as well as supportive services funding for Erie County residents making under $25/hour, puts residents on a pathway to family-sustaining wages and career stability, and helps alleviate our critical staffing shortages in the healthcare system with highly trained workers. Already the program has more than quadrupled the annual enrollment numbers under HPOG. ECHC is administered through the Buffalo and Erie County Workforce Investment Board, our WIOA partner agency, and is projected to yet again outperform in 2023. Another exciting workforce development initiative in Erie County is the Live Well Erie initiative. Launched by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the program uses $10 million allocated by the county to fund a pilot project to tackle a pervasive problem – the benefits cliff. A “benefits cliff ” occurs when an individual’s increase in pay results in their loss or substantial reduction of public support programs. As such, many individuals remain in lower-paying jobs for which they are overqualified, or avoid opportunities for upskilling or career advancement, because of this “cliff ”. This in turn creates a barrier to upward socioeconomic mobility and inhibits workers from taking the final off-ramp from public support services. The Live Well Erie Workforce Development Pilot is one of the only programs in the nation designed to tackle the benefits cliff head-on. The pilot aims to help an initial cohort of 100-200 local workers make that final “jump” over the benefits cliff by providing direct support during their upskilling and training periods.
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NYSAC News | Fall 2022
Furthermore, Erie County has partnered with 10 local employers in five high-demand sectors—manufacturing; health care; hospitality; business/customer service; technology— to participate in this pilot program, providing training opportunities and career advancement for employees as they make their way over the benefits cliff. Additionally, to make the benefits cliff more digestible and accessible to partners in the business community, Erie County along with the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and their “Employ Buffalo Niagara” initiative, have teamed up with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to create a Benefits Cliff Calculator. Using a host of data, the Benefits Cliff Calculator allows employers to interactively see what wages would be required for their real-world positions to ensure their employees do not fall prey to the benefits cliff, and are in a career track that has livable, sustaining wages. You can view the Benefits Cliff Calculator at: thepartnership.org/ employ-buffalo-niagara/benefits-cliff-calculator Like much of America, Erie County is experiencing an incredibly tight labor market. This presents both challenges and opportunities for our community. On the one hand, our regional numbers of employed persons have officially overtaken pre-pandemic levels and wages are up. On the other, it is extremely difficult for employers to find the workers they need. Nearly all our county partners nationwide can relate to this conundrum. Erie County has a host of workforce development initiatives, both within county government and in collaboration with our partners in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and there is still more in the hopper for 2022. From developing and researching new workforce-related policies, to forming working groups and task forces, and rolling out pilot programs, Erie County’s work in this area is slated to continue in 2023 as we continue to grapple with the shifting geography of work in the post-Covid era, macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, and a reshuffling of business patterns.
