Among the barriers to employment cited by CAREERwise Education is transportation:
Common Barriers to Employment
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Age
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Criminal record
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Disabilities
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Disadvantaged background
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Domestic violence
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Drug and/or alcohol abuse
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Education
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Employer biases
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Has a child with special needs
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Housing issues or homelessness
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Job search skills
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Lacks basic and employability skills
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Limited English proficiency
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Long-term welfare recipient
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Mental illness
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Needs training
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Needs child care assistance
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No high school diploma
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No transportation
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Gaps in employment http://www.careerwise.mnscu.edu/jobs/barriers-employment.html
Dean Baker wrote in How to Fight Poverty Through Full Employment:
One of the most effective ways to combat poverty among current and future generations is to maintain a full employment economy. The point should be straightforward: when the labor market is strong, or “tight,” it offers increased employment opportunities for those at the bottom. Disadvantaged workers are not only more likely to find employment in a tight labor market, they are also in a better position to secure higher wages as employers are forced to compete for labor. This can allow millions of workers the opportunity to raise themselves and their families out of poverty…. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35279-how-to-fight-poverty-through-full-employment
See, Transportation, Jobs, and Economic Growth http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/spring-2011/transportation-jobs-economic-growth/
Science Daily reported in Transit and training crucial to connecting unemployed with jobs:
According to a new University of Minnesota study, the mismatch between unemployed workers and job vacancies is a serious problem in the Twin Cities region and it appears to have worsened since the turn of the millennium. The biggest concentrations of unemployed workers lack fast or frequent transit service to some of the richest concentrations of job vacancies, particularly vacancies in the south and southwest metro.
The new study analyzes such employment mismatches in the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area and examines the potential of a new approach that integrates transit planning and workforce development.
“Transit plays a crucial role in connecting the unemployed with job opportunities, but it could be even more effective if efforts to get the unemployed to those job vacancies were better coordinated with efforts to give them the skills they need for those job vacancies,” said principal investigator Yingling Fan, who conducted the study with research fellow Andrew Guthrie. “Our research lays out an approach to reconcile those mismatches by coordinating transit planning, job training and job placement services.”
Disadvantaged job seekers often may be qualified for many entry-level jobs but have no way of reaching employment centers, which frequently are in the suburbs. What’s more, these job seekers may be able to reach many nearby jobs easily but lack needed qualifications…. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160729111302.htm
Citation:
Transit and training crucial to connecting unemployed with jobs
Date: July 29, 2016
Source: University of Minnesota
Summary:
The mismatch between unemployed workers and job vacancies is a serious problem in the Twin Cities region and it appears to have worsened since the turn of the millennium, new research indicates. The biggest concentrations of unemployed workers lack fast or frequent transit service to some of the richest concentrations of job vacancies, particularly vacancies in the south and southwest metro.
Here is the press release from the University of Minnesota:
Transit and training crucial to connecting unemployed with jobs
June 27, 2016
Transit and training crucial to connecting Twin Cities unemployed with job opportunities. Disadvantaged job seekers often may be qualified for many entry-level jobs but have no way of reaching employment centers, which frequently are in the suburbs. What’s more, these job seekers may be able to reach many nearby jobs easily but lack needed qualifications.
According to a new University of Minnesota study, the mismatch between unemployed workers and job vacancies is a serious problem in the Twin Cities region and it appears to have worsened since the turn of the millennium. The biggest concentrations of unemployed workers lack fast or frequent transit service to some of the richest concentrations of job vacancies, particularly vacancies in the south and southwest metro.
The new study analyzes such employment mismatches in the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area and examines the potential of a new approach that integrates transit planning and workforce development.
“Transit plays a crucial role in connecting the unemployed with job opportunities, but it could be even more effective if efforts to get the unemployed to those job vacancies were better coordinated with efforts to give them the skills they need for those job vacancies,” said principal investigator Yingling Fan, who conducted the study with research fellow Andrew Guthrie. “Our research lays out an approach to reconcile those mismatches by coordinating transit planning, job training and job placement services.”
Disadvantaged job seekers often may be qualified for many entry-level jobs but have no way of reaching employment centers, which frequently are in the suburbs. What’s more, these job seekers may be able to reach many nearby jobs easily but lack needed qualifications.
Efforts to address these mismatches often focus on transportation—such as improved or specialized public transit services—and skill-building and occupational training programs. Policymakers have generally separated the two.
“The Twin Cities region is in the midst of major expansion of the transit system and it will have consequences in terms of travel patterns and development patterns for decades,” Fan said. “That allows coordinated job training and transit planning efforts to make a big, long-lasting impact.”
The research team’s policy recommendations center on finding “sweet spots” for coordinated transit planning and workforce development and creating a future transit system to serve the needs of disadvantaged workers.
A key element of the study involves GIS maps developed by the researchers showing the concentrations of the unemployed, overlaid with patterns of job vacancies, for the entire region, between 2001 and 2013. They compared transit-accessible job vacancies for specific occupations to determine mismatch patterns.
For example, a band of cities with the highest job vacancies in manufacturing—jobs that have comparatively lower educational requirements—surround Minneapolis to the west and north. The highest concentrations of unemployment, however, are in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
The team then developed multiple transit planning, job creation, and workforce development policy scenarios, generating similar maps for each.
The study was sponsored by Hennepin County, the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota, and the McKnight Foundation.
“McKnight Foundation focuses on our low-income people and places that have been left out of the picture previously. Dr. Fan’s research pulls these areas together so policy-makers can see how policy can connect, reinforce, support, and provide benefit to the people that we care about,” said Eric Muschler, program director with the McKnight Foundation.
Fan, an associate professor with the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs, collaborates with the Center for Transportation Studies as a faculty scholar. CTS is nationally renown for developing, fostering, and spreading innovation in transportation.
More about this research, including a two-page research brief and the full research report, is available at cts.umn.edu/research/featured/transitandworkforce.
To visit the research website, click here http://www.cts.umn.edu/research/featured/transitandworkforce
The Atlantic article Stranded: How America’s Failing Public Transportation Increases Inequality:
That means America’s inadequate public transit leaves many Americans hoping to better themselves stuck—both metaphorically and quite literally.
There is no silver bullet. Kanter says that creating rapid bus service could help increase efficiency and could be completed fairly quickly and require fewer funds than, say, laying rails. And as my colleague Alana Semuels wrote in a recent piece, more public-private partnership may be a solution that helps cash-strapped public systems increase their reach. According to Kanter, the problem has to be addressed, and quickly, especially in the face of growing economic disparity. “We need to think about how important forms of transportation are to the economy and quality of life. And we have to reinvest.” http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/stranded-how-americas-failing-public-transportation-increases-inequality/393419/
Without affordable housing and practical and affordable transportation choices, many will remain stuck in poverty.
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