For many years, cities across the country have struggled to build and support a workforce that will foster a thriving economy and allow them to stay competitive. Louisville is no different, and the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded this challenge. Work is changing, and companies must change with it. Talent is reprioritizing what they want out of jobs and locations. Gen-Z is entering the job market in larger numbers with different ideas on what work looks like. Learning and instruction gaps caused by the pandemic have resulted in inconsistent preparation of today’s students for the workforce.  Automation and AI continue to change workforce needs. As our labor market evolves, we must provide education and upskilling opportunities to our working residents, to give them economic mobility, while also meeting the needs of our city’s employers.

The Bingham Fellows Class of 2023 seeks a diverse cohort of business and civic leaders to better understand long-standing challenges with our talent pipelines and pathways. They will discuss how we can scale best-practices to address the talent shortages we face today. To ensure our talent infrastructure is sound, businesses, educational institutions, and the community must collaborate on solutions. It will require investment into strong training pathways to our most in-demand open positions, better retention of graduates, support for businesses in growing their own talent pipelines from within, expansion of community initiatives focused on workforce development, and influencing talent to choose Louisville as their home.

The Bingham Fellows Class of 2023 will study these challenges from a variety of perspectives and seek community-based solutions. They will:

  • Learn more about how to support initiatives already underway in our community that are developing our current and future workforce
  • Work with higher education institutions to get more graduates to stay in Louisville
  • Strengthen the skills of existing workers by scaling up work-based learning opportunities to help businesses ‘grow their own’ talent from within
  • Understand the motivators for relocation in a post-COVID world and how we can influence talent to choose Louisville
  • Engage the business community to help educational institutions develop and support strong training pathways aligned with high wage-high demand occupations, and employability skills