As part of the Recovery Act's focus on building a more energy efficient and sustainable economy, the Department of Labor has given states $190 million in State Energy Sector Partnership and Training Grants. These grants support green workforce development projects, preparing workers for jobs in the burgeoning green economy.  Sounds sensible, right? The money should be providing new jobs in a growing economic sector.

But nothing is ever as easy at it seems. What happens if there aren’t enough jobs for these newly trained people? That’s the point of a recent article in the Connecticut Mirror. That state’s $3.3 million grant programs are pumping out green job trainees faster than sufficient green jobs can be created to employ them all.  In effect, it’s been creating a new group of even-better-trained unemployed men and women.

Richard Pearson, a consultant to the Connecticut Employment and Training Commission, acknowledges that the ultimate success or failure of the green training stimulus will depend on putting people into jobs and really transforming the economy. “Success,” he explains, “is going to be measured not just by the progress a participant makes in a training program but ultimately in their placement in a bona fide job and their ability to stay in that job.”

Pearson also points out that the kind of analysis and efforts necessary to make sure that the flow of people coming out of education programs matches up with the supply of jobs is more art than science right now.  “We are at the early stages of trying to figure out what it is going to take to match up the supply for talent with the demand for talent," he explains. That’s even true, he points out, in more mature industries.

Across the border in Massachusetts, Jen Boudrie, an instructional designer, is working on solving that equation.  In 2009, Boudrie created a Massachusetts Green Career Conference, in order to better link education, business, labor, consumer, and government stakeholders, allowing them to identify their respective needs and resources. In October, Boudrie is hosting another green career conference, which she calls “a small engine to drive the different moving pieces.”

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