Prepared by the Centers of Excellence, October 2016

Structured around the types of questions that community colleges commonly ask related to developing new programs, grant applications, program review, and regional planning, this guide addresses issues ranging from projected demand to evaluating how well programs are preparing students for the workplace.

This companion guide is designed to help practitioners evaluate commonly-used sources of labor market information and provides more detailed information on 21 different LMI sources, including strengths, limitations, screenshots, and web links.

Aspen Institute's Guide for Using Labor Market

• Aspen Guide for Using Labor Market Data to Improve Student Success

Bay Region Industry Cluster Products:

The Labor Market Information Division (LMID) has prepared industry cluster products that we hope you will find useful in your workforce and/or economic development plans

Released by the Employment Development Department (EDD):
San Francisco County registered the third lowest unemployment rate (5.4%) among California’s 58 counties as of April 2013.

Beacon Economics: expects non-farm employment in the San Francisco metro division to grow at about 1.5 percent per year over the next several years, slower than over the last year.

Recently added were the following new or updated Occupational Guides:

• Family and General Practitioners
• Statisticians
• Medical Equipment Repairers

The Census Bureau recently released ZIP Code Business Patterns data for 2011. Economic developers and others can get tables with the number of establishments, employment, and payroll. The site shows the number of establishments by size class for even detailed industries within a ZIP Code, but not employment for industry. The coding of businesses is different than that of the Employment Development Department, though both groups use the same industry code system.

A job openings feature was added to O*NET OnLine. One can now search for job openings on the Web from Summary, Details, and Custom report pages. Select a state and find job listings using mySkills myFuture, or access state and national job banks using CareerOneStop.

In 2012, CCSF participated in a pilot research study on CE Employment Outcomes. The research was conducted by the RP Group and surveyed both "completers" and "leavers" from CCSF's CE programs. The following documents summarize the findings from this study.

CCSF will be participating in this same research in 2013 and beyond to provide important data for the college and CE departments as we focus on efforts to improve student success and employment outcomes.

2012 CE Employment Outcomes Reports

2013 CE Employment Outcomes Reports:

2014 CE Employment Outcomes Reports:

Below is a link for pre and post wage data by program area based on survey results, for most CE Departments. Wage data is shown separately for completers and leavers.
 

Taken from: Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy, IHELP Brief

State and System Policies Related to Career Technical Education (Two New Working Papers)

IHELP has been engaged in a four-part research project on Career and Technical Education (CTE) in the California Community Colleges. The project is aimed at identifying ways that state and system policy can best support the CTE mission so that colleges can be more effective in helping students earn credentials of value in the workplace and helping employers and industries in their regions obtain a skilled workforce. As part of this project, we have identified a number of problems that we believe could be addressed with selective changes to state laws and regulations, with several discussed in the two new working papers. We will draw on these and other working papers to produce a final report in Spring, 2013 summarizing our findings and offering a range of possible policy changes.

High School to Community College to Workplace Pathways

This IHELP working paper examines policies that relate to (1) high school/community college counseling, (2) career pathways from high school to community college, (3) work-based learning, employer engagement and apprenticeships and (4) pathways from noncredit to credit. We identify several problems, examine laws and regulations related to those problems, and offer suggested policy changes to address them.

View the working paper

Accountability

This IHELP working paper examines policies that relate to accountability in the California Community Colleges, specifically within the CTE mission. Accountability for student outcomes in community colleges is complicated due to the fact that students enroll for a variety of reasons not often collected or maintained by current data systems. Accountability within the CTE mission is even more complicated because students may meet their career advancement or certification goals without earning a certificate or degree. In this paper, we identify several problems related to accountability, examine laws and regulations related to those problems, and offer suggested policy changes to address them.

View the working paper

Research Brief from Rutgers: