Reports

A labor market analysis of youth populations and services across San Diego’s four major regions

The San Diego Workforce Partnership (SDWP) commissioned this research to understand the workforce needs of youth ages 14-24 across San Diego County, and to assess how effectively current services align with those needs. The research addresses four core questions:

Key Questions

1. What demographic patterns do we see among different youth segments from underserved communities throughout San Diego County, including population characteristics, education completion, unemployment outcomes?
2. What services are currently being offered to these youth segments, where are they located, and which organizations deliver them
3. When we compare the demand for services against supply in services, where are there gaps, by youth segment, service type, and region?
4. How can these insights inform SDWP’s future allocation of program resources?

The San Diego Workforce Partnership is excited to present our 2024 annual report, “Building on Success: A Legacy of Impact and Growth.” This year’s report spotlights the vibrant stories of our participants, shining a light on their journeys and the essential support provided by our dedicated staff. We showcase how our efforts are making a meaningful difference in San Diego’s economy, showcasing the contributions we’re making to help job seekers and local businesses thrive.

We are pleased to share our Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report, highlighting collective efforts and selected services during July 1, 2022–June 30, 2023, framed by the organization’s core values—Collaboration, Excellence, Stewardship, Inclusion and Equity. Embracing workforce development requires understanding, meeting and anticipating the current and future needs of workers and employers alike. We continue to collaborate with partners, businesses, elected officials, donors and funders to address these needs by ensuring all job seekers, employers and students receive equal access to the skills and resources necessary for success. This report offers success stories of how we’re striving for a more equitable region, focusing funding and resources on those too often excluded from higher quality jobs and upward economic mobility. We look forward to continuing to build on this progress together in fiscal year 2024 and beyond.

From 2019 to 2021 the San Diego Workforce Partnership and Walmart partnered in an innovative initiative to help upskill workers in retail and improve their English fluency, opening pathways for New Americans in customer-facing and management retail jobs. The program seemed well-designed to meet a significant need and initially, retail employers were excited to partner. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting disruption to retail operations and staffing required the Workforce Partnership to pivot and eventually close the program. Despite this setback, our experience with the Pathways for Immigrants program has generated valuable insights into the viability and likely impact of similar efforts in the future. This report describes the program, reviews its progress and challenges, and presents a logic model for future programs integrating the lessons learned from the Pathways for Immigrants Program. 

San Diego County is facing a significant behavioral health (BH) worker shortage. This report estimates 17,000 BH professionals were employed in 11 key occupations in 2022. This is 8,000 workers short of the 25,000 needed. 

Public investment in behavioral health services at the federal, state, and local level continue to increase. Services for crisis care, homelessness prevention, substance use prevention and treatment services, expanded services in public schools and healthcare integration are all driving more demand for BH workers. Demographic trends are not helping; each year more San Diego workers retire than the year before as the “baby-boom” generation ages. In 2018, for example, about half of California’s psychiatrists are over 60 years of age (UCSF).

The convergence of these demographic trends, the global pandemic, growing mental health and substance use crises and historic public spending focused on expanding BH services raises a fundamental question: Is our regional Behavioral Health Workforce equipped to meet the need?

The strategy guidebook, Promoting Careers in Electric Mobility, was created to empower educators and school administrators to share information about the growing industry and subsequent career pathways with students and families. Developed by the San Diego Workforce Partnership in collaboration with ENGIE Impact and Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD), the guidebook outlines strategies to make career opportunities created by this movement toward electric vehicles (EV) more accessible, especially to students in disadvantaged and low-income communities.   

Educators, school administrators and career counselors in K-12 schools can use this guide to support students in their career exploration. Along with providing resources created specifically for this project, the guide also includes suggested strategies for implementing the tools and a summary of industry and government partners who can introduce students and families to the possibility of a quality job in clean energy. 

Reducing youth disconnection and the barriers to economic opportunity is critically important to ensure the health of our communities and our economy. Reaching our youth at this critical point in their lives with support, services and hope is life-changing. Data on youth disconnection can help us understand the challenges young people face and is essential for designing and implementing interventions and opportunities that lead to meaningful change. In this report, we examine the latest data on youth disconnections during 2020, including the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the relationship to young San Diegans’ access to education and employment.

This report is designed to shape the San Diego Workforce Partnership’s strategy for helping workers— especially women and people of color, and especially those without a college degree—find a pathway to the middle class in the healthcare sector. JP Morgan Chase provided funding for this reports and for two pilot programs that are shaped by this analysis. The first section provides an overview of San Diego County’s healthcare sector, its role in our economy, constituent industries and most common jobs. The second section assesses occupational segregation in healthcare and identifies the 11 most promising job options for our clients. The third section discusses how we can, through talent-pipeline management, expand this list to provide more pathways to the middle class.

Employer attitudes toward justice-involved applicants play a strikingly important role not just for those applicants but for society. Employment is a key driver of desistance from crime, but many justice-involved individuals struggle to find stable employment, partly because they are discriminated against in the job market.

Improving employer attitudes toward justice-involved applicants would cause them to hire more such applicants facilitating desistance from crime, reducing incarceration spending, and improving public safety. This report explores this topic to inform our strategic plan for serving the employment needs of justice-involved individuals in San Diego and Imperial Counties.