About This Project
The Future of Work project is a collaboration of Talent 2025 and Calvin University’s Center for Social Research.
It began with a recognition that current outcomes for K-12 students are too narrow, while workforce development prioritizes re-employment. Even as the evolution of the modern workplace accelerates, it is clear we lack a long-term plan to develop our talent to meet emerging needs and changes in industry.
The first phase of the project brought together a core project team from leading companies and organizations. This team reviewed existing research and data on the effects of automation and other technologies. The second phase drew from recommendations of 32 focus group participants representing K-12, post-secondary, workforce development and employers.
An Ongoing Effort
The dashboards in the Data, Research and Insights section are interactive. These draw from 20 years of state-level data for 21 job sectors, more than 802 occupations, and 16 soft skills defined by the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET.
Users are encouraged to conduct their own analysis by adjusting parameters for date range, geography, occupation, soft skills and more.
You also are encouraged to share your findings or explore how to get involved with advancing our recommendations:
Although statewide information is currently displayed in the interactives throughout the report, we are working to include detailed information for geographies as small as metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and should have the capability to report MSA-level data very soon. These customized outputs will be made available to interested parties for a nominal fee through Calvin University's Center for Social Research.
Additional Resources
- An influential 2019 report by McKinsey & Company, “The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow,” provides insights into the current state of hundreds of communities across the country. For example, it classifies Grand Rapids as a “mixed middle” manufacturing hub, part of a group it identifies as “America’s makers.” See the report.
- For an overview of the importance of soft skills, see this report in Higher Ed Dive on how Kentucky colleges are embedding these skills into curricula. In the article, Aaron Thompson, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, explores the role of postsecondary education in developing and measuring soft skills.
- To learn more about stackable credentials (which factor into some of our recommendations for post-secondary and workforce development), see these articles:
‘Credentials as you go’ can help college students – especially adults and people of color
The Power of Industry-Recognized Stackable Credentials - For more about the real-world opportunities in our recommendations, see these articles highlighting work-based learning:
Developing High-Quality State Work-Based Learning Programs: A Playbook for State Policymakers
How community colleges are bringing hands-on training closer to home
