For decades, the development of highly technical industries has been concentrated in a few large metropolitan areas, limiting potential economic benefits at the regional level and access to opportunity at the individual worker level. Businesses in these industries are looking for an available, abundant, and skilled talent pool, but have historically cultivated limiting mental models of what that talent pool looked like in terms of demographics, education background, and experience. Recent federal funding initiatives that support the tech industry’s regional expansion have demonstrated that this regional imbalance can be reset with the right intentionality, support systems, cross sector collaboration, and incentives. Additionally, in the workforce development field, the rise of skills-based hiring offers a more equitable approach to securing that coveted talent pool. When these things are in place, it frees up employers to choose operating locations based on other strategic priorities if they know there are viable ways of building the workforce they need.
In Securing a Successful Future for Workers, Communities, and Businesses: Advanced Manufacturing Apprenticeship Program Case Study, we explore Joby Aviation’s Advanced Manufacturing Apprenticeship Program (AMAP), an innovative model developed in partnership with Monterey Bay Drone, Automation, and Robotics Technology (DART) and the James Irvine Foundation that supports inclusive economic development through partnership between private business, local community members, and regional economic stakeholders.
This emergent apprenticeship pilot is already demonstrating a range of benefits within two years of its inception: a paid training pathway providing high-quality jobs for local community members in a growing tech industry, and state-level policy support, with the potential to diversify the economy in California’s Monterey Bay region.
