WASHINGTON – The Biden-Harris administration announced the award of approximately $71 million in grants to improve job quality, expand access to good jobs in critical sectors and prepare workers for good-paying jobs being created by the administration’s Investing in America agenda. 

Funding from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs Grant ProgramCritical Sectors Job Quality Grants Program and Workforce Pathways for Youth program will support 27 organizations serving 14 states and the District of Columbia. 

“The funding we’re announcing today advances the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of promoting worker-focused training programs that incorporate industry and worker voices,” said Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su. “The grants will help enhance access to quality jobs for care workers and people in other critical sectors, broaden high-quality job training and career opportunities for youth and strengthen public-private partnerships that prepare workers for high-quality infrastructure jobs.”

The department awarded nearly $38 million through the second round of the Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs Grant Program to enable 13 public-private partnerships across nine states to prepare workers for the good-paying infrastructure jobs the Biden-Harris administration is creating. The funding announced today – with the $94 million the department announced in September 2023 – is a combined investment of more than $130 million to support the growing demand for a skilled infrastructure workforce. 

Through the Critical Sectors Job Quality grants, totaling $13 million, eight organizations will design and deploy programs in 10 states to improve job quality and increase the availability of good jobs in the care, climate resilience and hospitality industries. The round of funding announced today aligns with the Good Jobs Principles developed by the departments of Labor and Commerce and emphasizes improving job quality within the care sector. Three recipients, representing half the total funding, will specifically focus on care occupations, including childcare and direct care workers.

The department also awarded nearly $20 million in Workforce Pathways for Youth demonstration grants to six national organizations that provide workforce development and training programs to youth after school and over the summer. The grants will help the organizations partner with state and local organizations that serve marginalized and underserved youth, ages 14 to 21, including Native American youth. Through the partnerships, these out-of-school-time organizations will provide workforce readiness programming to expand job training and workforce pathways for youth, including soft skill development, career exploration, job readiness, work-based learning opportunities and work experiences.

As the Investing in America agenda continues to create good-paying jobs nationwide, recipients of the Workforce Pathways for Youth, Building Pathways to Infrastructure and Critical Sectors grants will help build an “opportunity infrastructure” in which workers understand what skills they need, have access to the training to develop those skills – without roadblocks or barriers – and are connected to those jobs early. 

The recipients of Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs grants are as follows:

Recipient

City

State

Amount

UNITE-LA Inc. Los Angeles CA

$2,000,000

Contra Costa County Martinez CA

$5,000,000

Humanmade San Francisco CA

$2,000,000

City and County of Denver Denver CO

$5,000,000

City of Refuge Inc. Atlanta GA

$1,944,883

Jane Addams Resource Corporation Chicago IL

$4,789,579

Revolution Workshop Chicago IL

$2,000,000

Goodwill Industries International Inc. Rockville MD

$5,000,000

Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation Las Vegas NV

$1,998,841

Pursuit Transformation Company Inc Long Island City NY

$2,000,000

Philadelphia Works Inc. Philadelphia PA

$1,999,973

Texas A&M University College Station TX

$1,997,570

Workforce Solutions Alamo San Antonio TX

$2,000,000

Total Awarded    

$37,730,846

The recipients of the Critical Sectors Job Quality grants are as follows:

Recipient City State

Amount

Alaska Southcentral/Southeastern Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 23 Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee Anchorage AK

$2,415,709

SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West Local 2005 Oakland CA

$3,000,000

National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation Washington DC

$499,890

Charles Stewart Mott Community College Flint MI

$2,971,060

Workforce Development Board of Herkimer Madison and Oneida Counties Inc. Utica NY

$398,657

Seattle-King County Workforce Development Council Seattle WA 

$3,000,000

Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO Seattle WA 

$500,000

United Way of Dane County Inc. Madison WI

$147,384

Total Awarded    

$12,932,700

The recipients of the Workforce Pathways for Youth grants are as follows:

Recipient City

State

Amount

After-School All-Stars Los Angeles

CA

$3,159,034 

STEM Next Opportunity Fund San Diego

CA

$3,299,928 

Bridges From School to Work Inc. Bethesda

MD

$3,294,240 

National Urban League Inc. New York

NY

$3,300,000 

Jobs for America’s Graduates Alexandria

VA

$3,300,000 

Phi Delta Kappa International Inc Arlington

VA

$3,299,998 

Total Awarded    

$19,653,200 

This Department of Labor news article "Biden-Harris administration awards $71M in grants to improve job quality, prepare workers, expand access to good jobs in critical sectors" was originally found on https://www.dol.gov/newsroom