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RE-IMAGINING A BAY AREA WORKFORCE SYSTEM GROUNDED IN RACIAL AND GENDER EQUITY

“USING BOTH QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH, INSIGHT CENTER FOR COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EXAMINED HISTORICAL POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND NARRATIVES THAT DRIVE RACIAL AND GENDER INEQUITY IN BAY AREA WORKFORCE SYSTEMS.”

About The Project

This report provides valuable insights into the discriminatory roots of labor and workforce policies, and starts a conversation with workforce leaders, community organizations and philanthropy about the narrative and system changes we need to realize a Bay Area recovery that benefits all workers.

How current groups are situated in workforce participation and income

Across systems, deep-rooted and persistent racism, sexism, and xenophobia created today’s racial and gender inequities.

The most common job in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area is a personal care aide, with a median wage of $11.68.

Over 80 percent of the state’s personal care aides are women, and the majority are women of color. (Insight, 2019).

The five most common jobs (personal care aides, retail salespersons, cashiers, food prep, waiters) pay at least $90,000 a year less than the three highest paying jobs on the list. These jobs make up more than 54 percent of the ten most common jobs in the Bay Area.

Additional Resources

A Policy Review and Landscape Analysis

This timeline captures, by race/ethnicity, over 200 years of “steps” (policies providing or facilitating economic opportunities) and “stops” (policies excluding groups from economic opportunities). Insight created these deliverables to help stakeholders forge a shared history, complete with hard truths such as structural racism and the discriminatory policies enabling it, in order to move forward with a racial equity framework and acknowledge the lasting impact of – and the constant need to challenge – structural racism and gender inequity.

Blog: COVID Recovery Will Require a Transformed Workforce Development System in the Bay Area

“As we brace for uncertainty and loss, applying a racial and gender equity frame to the Bay Area workforce development system can challenge us to learn from a shared past, liberating us to envision a workforce where all are seen and valued for their full, and truly essential, worth.” – Aisa Villarosa, Insight Center for Community Economic Development

Report: How the Bay Area Workforce Impacts People of Color, Women and Immigrants

The following landscape provides an overview of the Bay Area’s workforce development system, including the North Bay, South Bay, and East Bay. Historic policies and practices and their impact on women, immigrants, and people of color in the region are also highlighted.

WEBINAR

On October 9, 2020, ReWork The Bay and the Insight Center hosted a dialogue to re-imagine a workforce system where women, people of color, immigrants and refugees have full access to the opportunities, rights, and protections needed to overcome economic fallout and systemic threats to health and safety. Drawing from the themes of our report on the Bay Area workforce’s racial and gender inequities, a panel of experts lifted up the experiences of people grappling with work, unemployment, and injustice during COVID-19. We explored how public officials, advocates, organizers, service providers, and a multitude of stakeholders within the workforce system at large can come together, offering recommendations for bold change to our local, regional, and statewide systems and the economy.

The Panelists:

Ken Oliver, Director of Business Development, CROP Organization

Kris Stadelman, Director, NOVA Workforce Development

Clair Minson, Founder and Principal Consultant, Sandra Grace, LLC

Moderator: Aisa Villarosa, Insight Center