Targeting infrastructure investments to build career opportunities for California’s left-behind workers

Executive summary

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), enacted in 2021 and 2022, respectively, supported thousands of projects across the country to improve transportation, energy, and water systems. The laws generated intense interest in leveraging these investments to expand career opportunities for people often left behind in the labor market. But infrastructure dollars flow from so many federal departments, support such a wide range of activities, and go to such a wide variety of organizations that it is difficult to see the full picture. Moreover, the laws largely sidelined the federal, state, and local entities that are most knowledgeable about education, training, and job placement.

This paper aims to demystify the infrastructure landscape for state and local leaders so they can narrow the task of “infrastructure workforce development” into more manageable pieces. What are the subsectors within the infrastructure field? Who are key actors, and how do they relate to each other? What federal, state, and local policies and funding patterns shape the incentives for different actors in a given subsector? Accordingly, this paper describes the infrastructure field; outlines which entities received federal funding and for what purpose; and lays out how federal, state, and local policy and funding all interact with each other. Armed with this information, state and local leaders can better identify infrastructure subsectors of interest, connect with relevant employers, assess associated labor market needs, and strategize with employers, education and workforce entities, unions, and others to more effectively recruit and prepare people for jobs in that sector.

Toward that end, this paper analyzes federal awards to entities in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors in the state of California, and recommends particular infrastructure subsectors for workforce development efforts.

In our analysis of federal grants awarded between 2022 and 2024, we made the following discoveries:

• The federal government granted 4,399 awards to entities in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors in California through the IIJA and IRA, totaling $61.5 billion. Grants came from multiple federal departments, including the departments of Transportation, Energy, Interior, Commerce, and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Awards supported a wide range of infrastructure and climate-related projects, including roads and bridges; public transit; reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, buildings, and industrial processes; water quality and availability; energy; broadband; urban forestry; flood and fire prevention; and more. The largest share of funding went to roads and bridges.
• Awards went to a wide variety of organizations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, but the largest share went to state agencies. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) received the largest amount, followed by the California State Water Resources Control Board, the California Energy Commission, and the California Public Utilities Commission. Local government entities such as transit authorities, ports, airports, water and energy utilities, and air quality districts also received sizable amounts of funding.
• Few awards included workforce development activities such as occupational skills training and job placement, based on an analysis of project descriptions from the Invest.gov website created by the Biden administration (and subsequently removed by the Trump administration).

After he took office in January 2025, President Donald Trump upended established priorities and spending across the federal government. While there is no authoritative source of all the funding cuts and cancellations, we identified nearly 70 awards totaling $7.5 billion that President Trump cancelled—about 12% of all funding to the state.

The federal government’s infrastructure priorities and funding are less predictable now than they were before the 2024 election, and the upcoming re-authorization of the IIJA also raises questions. Nonetheless, the federal government will continue to support transportation, energy, and water infrastructure systems—in some fashion. The uncertainty is real, though. Funding priorities and amounts may change, awards may be less predictable, and new conditions may be attached to funding.

But federal funding is not the only game in town. Most infrastructure spending comes from state and local sources, and it is state and local leaders who have the most control over planning, designing, and implementing infrastructure projects. Relatedly, the state of California has made substantial policy and financial commitments to address climate change, which necessarily involve infrastructure.

Whatever the federal role, state and local leaders have to work together to ensure that critical energy, water, and transportation systems all function, and that requires paying attention to the workers who build, maintain, and operate those systems. Ensuring that there are enough workers with the right skills to carry out infrastructure projects should be a standard consideration in project development and implementation. Problems related to quality control, delays, and cost overruns are much more likely to occur if leaders and employers treat recruitment, training, and hiring as afterthoughts.

The infrastructure field has long faced challenges with recruiting and retaining workers. If state and local actors such as employers, policymakers, workforce development organizations, educational institutions, nonprofits, unions, and others work together, they can create more robust talent pipelines to help employers meet their hiring needs while also providing career opportunities to a broad, diverse pool of workers. Since most infrastructure jobs do not require a college degree (though many incorporate apprenticeships or other on-the-job training), they are accessible to a wide swath of the workforce. Moreover, infrastructure jobs offer above-average median wages and a higher floor for workers at the lower end of the wage distribution.

This paper makes two core recommendations:

• Invest in workforce sector partnerships in targeted infrastructure fields, starting with zero-emission transportation and water quality and availability. Sector partnerships focus on recruitment, training, and job placement for employers who produce similar goods and services or that otherwise have similar skill and occupational needs. These partnerships are standard practice in workforce development nationally and in California, but the state does not appear to have standing, statewide, cross-agency capacity to support such efforts. Zero-emission transportation and water are good bets for sector partnerships: They are supported not only by federal investments, but also by state and local investments and policy goals, which will likely continue to generate activities and projects that require skilled workers.

These sector initiatives should be undergirded by a permanent statewide cross-agency and policy infrastructure—one that is neither bound to a specific time-limited funding stream nor applicable only to programs funded or supported by a given agency.

• Recruit and train a diverse range of workers, including young adults. Leaders and programs can and should emphasize different geographic areas or groups of people (including job seekers and incumbent workers), but they should also prioritize reaching young adults. Nationally and in California, the systems supporting the transition from school to a good job are foundering for many young people. Nearly 525,000 young people ages 16 to 24 in California were disconnected from school and work as of 2022—11% of that age group—and they face increased chances of unemployment and low-wage work.

Carrying out these recommendations will require mapping out existing efforts to build on, identifying gaps, and holding important and difficult discussions about which organizations should be involved, what roles they should play, who should be in leadership positions, and (not least of all) funding. The workforce, education, and infrastructure sectors in California all have considerable resources and strengths, but they need to work together more effectively to develop better talent pipelines for in-demand infrastructure- and climate-related jobs. This includes attention to recruitment, occupational skills training, apprenticeships, career navigation, job placement, and job retention.

There is not a unitary template for success, but collaboration is essential. Coalition governance and structures vary by place, and so do the idiosyncrasies of organizational capacity and relationships. But success will depend upon leveraging and strengthening the “invisible” civic infrastructure that enables multiple organizations to work together toward shared goals.

Introduction

Federal infrastructure and climate-related spending dramatically increased in recent years thanks to two signature pieces of legislature signed by President Joe Biden: 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The laws invested in tens of thousands of projects across the country to improve transportation, energy, water, and broadband systems; support wildfire and land management; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and more. All these projects require skilled workers, but it has been challenging to connect the investments to robust workforce development strategies and bring more people into infrastructure-related careers. The laws mostly allow—but do not require—workforce development activities such as outreach, recruitment, occupational skills training, and job placement. They provide few automatic mechanisms to link education and workforce leaders with those planning or carrying out infrastructure projects. Nor did the laws fund apprenticeships, community colleges, the public workforce development system, or the nonprofit organizations that do so much to recruit and prepare workers.

Moreover, federal funds flow from so many departments, cover such a wide range of activities and projects, and go to such a wide range of recipients that it is difficult to assess the full spectrum of infrastructure spending.

Another issue is that the infrastructure sector itself is fragmented and decentralized. It is better understood as a “supersector” that spans multiple industries that all relate in some way to physical assets in the built and natural environments. This supersector includes energy, water, and transportation systems; broadband networks; public works; and land management—all of which encompass different actors, activities, and purposes. The infrastructure supersector is fragmented in terms of governance as well. It includes a variety of state and municipal agencies, energy utilities that may be publicly or privately owned, water utilities and districts that may be governed and funded separately from a municipal or county government, transit agencies, port authorities, and more. It can be a confusing landscape for education and workforce actors to navigate, just as the education and workforce development landscape can be confusing for infrastructure entities to navigate.

This paper seeks to help actors in the workforce and education sectors—or anyone interested in helping to recruit, train, and place people into infrastructure jobs—better understand the infrastructure sector. Toward that end, the paper assesses flows of federal infrastructure spending into California between roughly 2022 and 2024, lays out the kinds of projects that were funded and the types of organizations receiving the funds, and provides a light review of whether workforce development was incorporated into these awards.

Of course, the political environment changed dramatically when President Trump took office in January 2025. He moved quickly to counter many of the IIJA and IRA’s goals. His administration paused or cancelled funds that did not align with his administration’s priorities, and he championed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which modified or cancelled IRA tax credits and rescinded the unobligated funds of many IIJA and IRA programs.

Another factor in any analysis of infrastructure spending is that federal funds, while notable and often catalytic, are not the only sources of support. In fact, state and local dollars account for the majority of infrastructure spending, whether through user fees, general fund revenue, or debt instruments such as bonds.

Nonetheless, a review of federal infrastructure awards provides critical insights for workforce development actors, since the awards not only provide funds but also signal the priorities of the state and local entities that access federal dollars and manage transportation, water, energy, and clean air projects.

The findings below are based on an analysis of the Investing in America spreadsheet downloaded from the Invest.gov website on January 14, 2025, before it was dismantled by the Trump administration. The spreadsheet includes awards from 2021-25, but it primarily includes awards in the 2022-24 period. Our goal was to identify IIJA and IRA awards that were granted or allocated to entities in California, including those in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. For more information on the spreadsheet and our analysis, please see the Methodology.

Findings

Through the IIJA and the IRA, the federal government made 4,399 awards in California totaling $61.5 billion. Roads and bridges accounted for the largest share of funds.

The awards we identified were made between 2022 and 2024. For simplicity’s sake, we combined funding from different years into one figure, rather than reporting on awards separately by year.

There were 4,399 awards in all, which spanned a wide range of infrastructure categories such as transportation, water, energy, broadband, and more. Transportation-related awards (encompassing projects for roads, public transit, airports, rail, and ports) accounted for the largest percentage of awards (49% of all awards) and the largest share of funding (65% of all funds).

Categories that accounted for more than $1 billion are highlighted below.

An introduction to the infrastructure field and to infrastructure- and climate-related jobs

Awards went to many types of entities in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, but state agencies received the largest share of funds.

Recipients of federal funding included a wide variety of actors: state, local, and tribal governments; special purpose government bodies like transit, air quality, and water districts; nonprofits; universities; community colleges; private-sector firms; school districts; and others (see Figure 2). These are the entities that decide whether and how to include workforce development activities such as outreach, recruitment, training, and job placement as they deploy their funds.

Among the multitude of awardees, state agencies stood out as a group for their role in receiving and managing federal awards—accounting for almost $36 billion, about 58% of all funds to the state. This is because much of the funding, especially from the IIJA, consisted of formula funding, which allocates federal funds to designated state and local governments (primarily state governments) based on pre-existing formulas, such as population levels or roadway miles. Competitive grants are open to a wider range of organizational types, and there is no guarantee of funding as there is with formula grants.

Awards to California state government entities are concentrated in a few agencies

Awards to local and regional governments are spread across many types of entities

Most are special purpose governments or municipal proprietary agencies with specific, limited purviews to manage services and assets related to transportation, energy, water, and air quality.

We identified 95 awards incorporating workforce development activities, accounting for 2% of all awards.

We identified 95 awards that incorporated workforce development activities such as occupational skills training, apprenticeships, and job placement. All are competitive grants.

This is almost certainly an undercount, but it is nonetheless a useful benchmark. We primarily relied upon project descriptions from the spreadsheet of awards available from the Invest.gov website, without systematically investigating the awards to gain further information, such as by reviewing the websites of awardees or related announcements and articles. For comparison’s sake, when we did a more thorough review of awards made in the Los Angeles region, looking for information beyond what was listed on the Invest.gov website, we found a higher share of awards (7%) that incorporated workforce development activities. The Invest.gov spreadsheet on its own does not provide enough information to determine with precision the share of awards that include workforce development elements.

However, the estimate about how many awards include workforce components is directionally useful. Whether the share of awards incorporating workforce development in California is 2% or 7%, it is a low number and signals that workforce development was not a major factor in infrastructure projects. Even if the figure was 15%, double what we calculated in the Los Angeles region, it would still be a relatively low number.

In 51 of the awards, the stated purpose of the grant was to provide education, training, and work-based learning opportunities. Proposed activities included providing training in such fields as railroad engineering, industrial technology, brownfield remediation, hybrid vehicle and EV maintenance, water treatment, and solar installation. Proposals also described internships, professional development, and research opportunities for undergraduate and master’s students focusing on agricultural science, natural resources management, and transportation.

The remainder of the awards incorporated education, training, and work-based learning opportunities as activities related to broader infrastructure and climate-related goals. These included transitioning to zero-emission vehicles; strengthening the electrical grid; retrofitting buildings to increase their energy efficiency; promoting urban and community forestry; restoring habitats and removing litter; and increasing protections against storm surges, flooding, and fires.

Two types of projects stood out for incorporating workforce activities: those supporting the transition to zero-emission vehicles (15 awards) and urban and community forestry (12 awards). Transportation electrification awards with workforce elements ranged in size from $7 million to $500 million; grantees included the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and local transit agencies. Urban forestry awards with workforce components ranged in size from about $400,000 to $12 million, and they went to local governments, universities, and nonprofits.

We identified 67 awards totaling $7.5 billion that were cancelled by the Trump administration

The federal funding and policy landscape has been chaotic and confusing since President Trump took office. There has been a flurry of executive orders, departmental memos, and contract and grant cancellations from the Department of Government Efficiency and other federal departments. There is no consolidated source on which grants or funding programs have been affected. Nonetheless, it is possible to piece together information that at least provisionally identifies how many awards in California have been cancelled.

We found more than twenty programs that appear to have been cancelled, accounting for nearly 70 awards totaling $7.5 billion. Table 1 lists the ten largest cancelled awards.

Two of the awards account for more than half of the cancelled funds: $3.1 billion to the California High-Speed Rail Authority and $1.2 billion to the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES). Eight awards totaling more than $900 million from two Department of Energy programs promoting electric grid upgrades were cancelled; the largest of these cancelled grants was a $600 million one to the California Energy Commission. Other cancellations include grants to reduce carbon emissions in industrial processes ($500 million to the National Cement Company of California and $189 million to Brimstone Energy); $427 million to develop offshore wind projects in Humboldt Bay; $270 million for a carbon capture demonstration project; $250 million to the California Public Utilities Commission for the Solar for All Program; 31 grants from the Environmental and Climate Justice Program totaling $228 million; and $70 million to the California Department of Technology for a State Digital Equity Capacity Grant.

Don’t forget about state and local policy

As noted previously, state and local entities provide most infrastructure funding whether through ratepayer revenue, general funds, or debt instruments like bonds, and they also own and operate most infrastructure assets. The state of California is making sizeable infrastructure and climate investments that will support projects likely to generate labor market demand. As discussed in the recommendation section below, those investments include transportation electrification and ensuring water quality and availability. Additionally, at least three other state programs signal that the state is prioritizing climate and infrastructure issues. Both the Climate Bond and the Cap-and-Invest Program described below explicitly allow workforce development activities, although much will be determined in implementation.

• The Climate Bond (or Proposition 4) was passed by California voters in 2024, directing $10 billion to climate-resilience purposes, including water, wildfire, energy, biodiversity, access to nature, and more. The California Natural Resources Agency administers the bond overall, and a variety of state departments, boards, conservancies, and commissions administer specific programs.
• Proceeds from the state’s Cap-and-Invest Program (until recently known as Cap-and-Trade) provide funds for the California Climate Investments (CCI), which support projects addressing climate change while providing environmental, economic, and public health benefits. The California Air Resources Board oversees CCI as a whole, which consists of more than 100 programs administered by multiple state agencies. Funding categories include agriculture, energy, nature-based solutions, transportation, transit-oriented development, water, and more.
• SB 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act, was enacted in 2017 and directs an estimated $5 billion annually to state highways, local streets and roads, transit, and pedestrian and cycle routes.

Recommendations

Going forward, federal, state, and local infrastructure and climate-related investments will continue to support projects that need skilled workers. Aging and vulnerable water infrastructure, inefficient and outmoded energy facilities, and outdated residential and commercial buildings all need upgrades and maintenance. The state needs to continue to build out its charging infrastructure given its emphasis on zero-emission transportation. Floods, droughts, fires, and other acute and chronic impacts add to the urgency of these challenges. 

These activities provide opportunities to create stronger and more robust career pathways for people and workers who are often left behind, while also helping employers in the infrastructure sector find and retain the workers they need.

To accomplish this, California leaders in the workforce, education, and infrastructure sectors need to knit their considerable resources together more effectively to develop talent pipelines for in-demand infrastructure and climate-related occupations. Below are some recommendations about how to do so.

1. Invest in workforce sector partnerships in targeted infrastructure fields, starting with zero-emission transportation as well as water quality and availability

At this point, sector strategies are a core workforce development approach nationally and in California. For example, the California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Training Partnership is based on a sector model. Sometimes called sector partnerships, industry partnerships, or industry sector partnerships, sector strategies focus on job training and placement in particular industries or occupations, rather than trying to meet employer needs across the whole span of the labor market.

Notably, sector initiatives should be undergirded by a statewide cross-agency and policy infrastructure, neither bound to a specific time-limited funding stream nor applicable only to programs funded or supported by a given agency. Without such scaffolding, programs will not scale and may not last. And crucially, a critical mass of employers within a given sector will need to work together to identify and communicate their current and future skill needs. Absent such intelligence (which cannot be gleaned from publicly available data or sporadic convenings), education and workforce entities will not have the information they need to target business needs.

Based on a review of investments at the federal, state, and local levels, along with information on local actions and priorities, we recommend initiatives focused on zero-emission vehicles and water infrastructure.

Zero-emission vehicles and related infrastructure among light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles and in the goods-moving sector: The transition to zero-emission vehicles in California is supported not only by the federal investments listed above, but even more so by state and local policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Together, these investments point to a continued focus on vehicle electrification that will reliably generate demand for workers in zero emission–related occupations in the state.

Nearly 160 federal awards totaling nearly $2.9 billion went to a variety of entities throughout the state to reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions. Entities such as ports, transit agencies, school districts, air quality districts, and city and county governments received grants to install charging infrastructure and/or to purchase zero- or low-emission transit buses, school buses, trucks, and port vehicles and equipment.

At the state level, legislation signed in 2022 requires California to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order in 2020 mandating that all new passenger trucks and vehicles sold in the state must be zero emission by 2035, with a target of 2045 for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Governor Newsom followed that up with a 2025 executive order reaffirming the state’s commitment to zero-emission vehicles after President Trump signed legislation revoking EPA waivers that allowed the state to set state emissions standards that were more stringent than federal standards. Multiple state agencies—including the California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission, and the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development—are all moving aggressively to support the deployment and use of zero-emission vehicles, and they are including workforce development in their efforts.

An analysis of the labor market needs associated with building out the state’s charging infrastructure estimates that the greatest demand will be for electricians; a variety of construction jobs; positions in planning, design, and administration; and utility line workers.

Looking more granularly at the regional level, the Green Jobs Regional Partnership housed at the LA Cleantech Incubator identified three high-priority EV-related occupations: electricians, technicians to maintain and repair charging stations and other supply equipment, and technicians to maintain and repair light-duty EV private vehicles and school buses. It also identified two occupations that may warrant attention after 2028: EV fleet managers and production line workers for manufacturing EVs and EV supply equipment.

Water systems including water treatment, distribution, and conservation and stormwater management: Water infrastructure includes a range of built and natural systems that supply, treat, and conserve water and also manage stormwater runoff to prevent pollution, flooding, and erosion. It includes “gray infrastructure” such as pipes, pumps, tunnels, and treatment plants as well as “green infrastructure” such as raingardens and bioswales that use plants, soils, and other media to capture and treat stormwater. Such systems are badly in need of investment: as Brookings colleague Joseph W. Kane wrote, “Whether it’s fixing pipes, modernizing treatment plans, or conserving and protecting natural resources, the list of water needs keeps growing, as does the price tag.”

The water sector has identified workforce development as a priority: a 2023 review of the industry summarized it thusly: “aging infrastructure remains the top concern in the sector, compounded by the pitfalls of an aging workforce and the pursuit of hiring qualified staff.” The U.S. Water Alliance, an industry association of water utilities and other stakeholders, noted, “many utilities face a current workforce quantity and quality crisis.” In California, the California Workforce Development Board has sponsored a High Road Training Partnership program in the water sector, and the Centers of Excellence for Labor Market Research within the community college system identified eight mission-critical water-sector occupations requiring more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree that are difficult to fill, including positions for a variety of technicians, mechanics and maintenance workers, and operating engineers.

A series of federal, state, and local investments focus on water quality and availability, suggesting that continued projects and activities will require water workers. Nearly 320 water-focused federal awards totaling $4.6 billion went to state and local entities. The largest federal water investments went to the state (more than $2 billion), specifically to the California State Water Resources Control Board to capitalize state revolving (loan) funds (SRFs), with one focused on clean water and the other on drinking water. Through SRFs, states play a crucial role in planning, selecting, and investing in water projects that are often administered by local utilities and other local actors. Funded projects can include wastewater facilities, water treatment plants, pollution control, and pipe installation and repair.

Federal awards also went to local and regional entities such as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Contra Costa Water District, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the Sacramento Area Sewer District for projects relating to purifying and reusing cleaned wastewater, groundwater replenishment, desalination, and more.

Modernizing water infrastructure and management is clearly a state priority. The state’s 2022 Water Supply Strategy laid out priorities including developing new water through wastewater recycling and desalination and expanding water storage capacity to capture and save more stormwater. Such projects are capital intensive, expensive, and require ongoing operations and maintenance. California has directed billions of dollars to water and climate projects in recent years, even after state budget cuts. The 2024 Climate Bond will direct nearly $4 billion to water-related purposes, including safe drinking water, flood planning, stormwater management, and more—on top of similar projects already supported by general fund dollars.

2. Ensure that infrastructure workforce initiatives recruit from a broad, diverse group of people, particularly focusing on young adults

The infrastructure workforce skews older, with above-average shares of workers over age 45 and below-average shares under age 24. On average, an estimated 1.7 million infrastructure workers will need to be replaced each year over the next decade due to retirements and workers transitioning out of these jobs. Infrastructure projects like the ones mentioned above require a continuous flow of workers.

Meanwhile, the systems supporting the transition from school to a good job are foundering for many young people, especially for those from low-income backgrounds or whose parents do not have college degrees. In a concise distillation of the problems with current youth, education, and employment policies, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce referenced “the triple deficits of inadequate access to postsecondary education, limited exposure to high-quality work experience and work-based learning, and insufficient counseling to support career navigation.” Another article memorably described the United States as having “arguably one of the least effective systems for preparing non-college bound youth for the workforce in the Western World.” These systemic barriers disproportionately affect young people of color and those from marginalized communities.

Nearly 525,000 young people ages 16 to 24 in California are disconnected from school and work—or 11% of all young people in that age group—and they face increased chances of unemployment and low-wage work. The problem is particularly acute among young adults past high-school age: 452,000 young people from ages 19 to 24 are disconnected, accounting for one in seven (14%) of all Californians in that age group. Almost all disconnected young adults from ages 19 to 24 have a high school diploma (93%), but relatively few have educational credentials beyond that: they either did not enroll in post-secondary education or they left without completing a degree. Disconnected young adults have less work experience than others in their age group as a whole and higher poverty rates, and they are disproportionately Black, Native American, and Hispanic or Latino.

Young people in these circumstances—with lower educational attainment, limited work experience, and likely weak professional networks—do not generally have good labor market prospects, likely facing high unemployment and low-wage jobs.

But more broadly, leaving so many people on the economic and social margins squanders human potential and productivity. A lack of educational credentials does not equal a lack of talent and drive. In this phase of life, young people should be charting their futures, developing their talents, and plugging into the labor market, thereby allowing themselves to support themselves and their families, pay taxes, and contribute to their communities. Instead, many young people face an obstacle course.

Notably, however, prioritizing young people does not mean only focusing on young people. Given that the infrastructure sector is struggling to find and retain workers, outreach should be broad. There are good reasons to focus on other communities or specific geographic areas. For instance, current car and bus mechanics, regardless of age, are good candidates to receive additional training to become certified in EVs.

And many of the strategies to support young people’s success in workforce development are beneficial to other groups as well, such as assistance with transportation or guidance about post-secondary options.

But reaching young people will require some specific approaches, such as partnerships with high schools (including career and technical education programs), high school re-engagement programs, and youth-serving nonprofits. Youth-serving initiatives should also include program design elements based on lessons from other youth-serving workforce development and education programs, such as the importance of positive and supportive relationships, cohort models, and stipends or paid work-based learning opportunities.

Conclusion

The recent surge in federal infrastructure and climate funding may be over. To say the least, federal priorities and funding have been unsettled since President Trump took office. However, state and local leaders are still the primary owners, operators, and funders of most infrastructure assets. They are in the driver’s seat. Of course, state and local actors face fiscal constraints, a major reason why federal funding is so important. Balancing ongoing maintenance with new capital projects and capacity expansions is a major challenge, as is the rising cost of materials.

But the infrastructure systems that undergird our daily life and economy—transportation, water, energy, natural resources, and other systems—only function if there are skilled workers to design, build, and maintain them. Given that infrastructure employers continually report difficulties with recruiting, hiring, and retaining workers, workforce development cannot be an afterthought. That is a recipe for project delays, quality control problems, and cost over-runs.

Infrastructure employers need to provide clearer signals about their current and future labor market demands and apply “the type of rigor and discipline to sourcing…talent that they historically applied to their materials supply chains.” The public sector should provide the enabling conditions through strong sector initiatives to help the private sector articulate its workforce needs. Meanwhile, there should be deep collaboration between education and workforce organizations to prepare job seekers and help incumbent workers advance. Much of this already happens, but at nowhere near the scale required.

There are important questions ahead about which agencies and organizations should be involved, what roles they should play, and who should be in leadership positions. These are not easily or superficially answered questions; cross-sector coalitions promoting greater economic opportunity “can be messy, time-consuming, and often marked by friction,” as noted by Brookings colleagues. There is not a unitary model or template for success, but collaboration is essential. The specifics of coalition governance and structure vary by place, and so do the idiosyncrasies of organizational capacity and relationships. But since no single organization has the knowledge, influence, and resources to carry out the work of a sector initiative, the goal of creating more and better employment opportunities for people and workers on the economic margins requires a coalition that leverages the strength of many.