News & Stories

Changing how we train all Americans will happen from the ground up, not from the top down. The San Diego Workforce Partnership is leading this change in San Diego and we’re excited to be piloting technology solutions with impact aligned partners—JFF, New Profit, XPRIZE and MIT Solve—to prepare COVID impacted works for the future of work.

Many Americans are working well past the traditional retirement age of 65, into their 70s and 80s. Over the coming decade, workers 55 years and older will be the fastest-growing segment of the workforce, gifting our communities with the opportunity to learn and grow from their years of professional experience.

Between career centers all around the county, special projects operated with our community partners and direct service programs operated remotely, how do you know which is best fit for your needs? Job seekers can now call (619) 319-WORK (9675) to learn about all of our service offerings.

San Diego is home to the largest metropolitan veteran workforce anywhere in the country. Veteran unemployment isn’t simply an issue for another community to solve; San Diego sits at the heart of the problem.

This month the San Diego Workforce Partnership and Cajon Valley Unified School District are unveiling the Launch Pad—a middle school library transformed into a career center reimagined that blends the World of Work™ program with our tools and labor market information. The space will be a test bed for students and their families to get in touch with their personal strengths, interests and values; try on different careers; and make a plan and access resources that will help them reach their career goals.

Carmen Summers leads a world class team of Cloud Platform Specialists that enable enterprise customers to transform complex visionary ideas into sustainable, adaptive, technology solutions on Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Platform. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2007, Carmen worked for Electronic Data Systems and honorably served 8 years in the United States Air Force.

Yadira Ocon is a Case Manager at the San Diego Workforce Partnership. Here she tells us about herself, both personally and professionally.

To address inequity, we must be willing to ask hard questions, make unpopular decisions and stand for what is right. Diversity is one of San Diego’s greatest strengths, yet people of color face dramatic inequities in our local education, employment, healthcare, banking and justice systems. Immigrants and English learners—over a quarter of San Diegans—face inequities tied to legal status, language fluency, skin color and religion. If our economy is to thrive, this cannot stand.

San Diego’s jobs recovery continued in September, but many companies and individuals continue to struggle with the ravages of the pandemic. The region added jobs but at half the pace seen in August. Unemployment fell, but the jobless rate is