Esther Spare has a job that she loves and a new promotion.  Spare worked in fast-food restaurants and as a manual laborer, but the wages were low and her chances for advancement nil. That is, until she became one of more than 5,400 men and women who found a job—and not just any job but a job with a future—with the help of Seattle Jobs Initiative (SJI).  Now celebrating its tenth year, SJI is recognized as a leader for innovative practices that are changing the way business is done in the field of workforce development.

For Spare, those practices mean the difference between a dead-end job and a promising future.  “I don’t think they know what all they’ve done for me,” she says.  “A job, yes.  But they’ve also helped me move forward.  I’ve come from a hard life.  This is the best experience I’ve ever had.  I’m miles ahead of where I’d be otherwise.”

High-paying jobs in aerospace and technology fuel the Puget Sound economy, but low-wage workers without skills or connections to share in the prosperity are perpetually running on empty.  A minimum wage jobs covers only 37 percent of what it takes for a single parent with two kids to keep food on the table, pay the rent, and keep up with medical, transportation, and child care costs.  Ninety percent of SJI participants earn less than $15,000 a year before entering the training program.  Seattle Jobs Initiative targets low-wage workers like Spare and offers great training, skills, and the supports needed to find and keep a good job.

The initiative’s “dual-customer” approach pays attention to the needs of workers and business, and that’s one key to its success.  SJI trains workers for jobs in specific sectors of the regional economy and in industries in need of trained workers.  “It seems like a no-brainer to actually prepare people for jobs that exist and provide a set of skills based on a deep knowledge of industry needs,” says Mary Jean Ryan, an SJI board member.  “But that wasn’t the way workforce development was done ten or 15 years ago.”

Ryan was working for the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development in 1995 when Bob Giloth, director of family economic success at the Casey Foundation, first approached the city about co-investing in a jobs program.  Casey chose Seattle as one of the sites in its five-city Jobs Initiative, designed to link low-income adults to good paying jobs.  Casey’s initial investment of $750,000 drew a $5 million commitment from the City of Seattle, then led by Mayor Norm Rice, and in 1997 SJI was launched under the city’s auspices.

Three mayors and a decade later, SJI is an independent nonprofit organization supported by public and private funders.  Ryan credits “Casey’s rigor and structure around outcome” with shaping SJI.  “They were zealots about having robust data systems and measureable results that would guide the work.”  In bad budget years, she says, SJI data were crucial to the initiative’s survival.  “It’s hard to cut a program when you have the numbers.”

SJI Director Anne Keeney, who has been involved with the program since its inception, says it offers employers qualified job candidates with skills and on-the-job experience.  “Our classes have employer expectations built into them,” she says.  “We get job seekers to practice as if they were on the job.”  Assessments, internships, and a year’s worth of follow-up also help to ensure success.

SJI is designed to help people like Spare land a job that offers a chance to move up the ladder.  Participants choose classes in automotive, construction, welding, and office support.  The program also helps them get an internship in their field and offers English language and GED programs as well as help with housing, child care, and transportation challenges that might otherwise derail them.

Spare attended classes to learn office skills and approached her internship “with the mind-set that I was going to come in and land the job.  I came to do my best.”  Tanya Jimale, owner of JTS Manage Services, hired Spare and recently promoted her to operations manager.  “She’s a team player,” Jimale says.

A new partnership with community colleges and $15 million in new state funding for training low-income adults promise to expand SJI participants’ opportunities and connections to mid-wage jobs.  “There are a lot of news stories about new jobs in our region, but what do they pay?” Keeney asks.  “Our goal is to connect to jobs that pay a living wage.” 

Published with permission from The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

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