The PROPEL Center, formerly known as the PROMISE Center, helps to create a stronger workforce by testing and applying proven workforce strategies across different settings, tailored to local conditions and for various groups. 

Explore these resources produced by AIR staff related to the PROPEL Center’s background, vision, and work.
 

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Q&A | JUNE 2023

Positioning Workforce Training to Respond to the Rise i Skills-Based Hiring

The PROPEL Center is partnering with Year Up to expand its nationwide program to develop essential career readiness and business skills, build foundational technical capabilities, and complete an immersive, work-based learning experience with a leading employer partner. In this Q&A, AIR shares how this work could help scale up effective skills-based training programs, expand and diversify the workforce, and support employers’ skills-based hiring practices.

Q&A | FEBRUARY 2023

Pursuing Innovations to Build a Better Workforce Development Ecosystem

Education and training have long been considered routes to economic security. But millions of people can’t access postsecondary education or workforce training that would prepare them for high-demand, living-wage jobs. See how AIR experts are working to develop, build, and measure the impact of innovations designed to increase economic opportunity and mobility at scale.

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BLOG POST | FEBRUARY 2023

What We're Learning About Displaced Workers and Their Needs

Displaced workers may need different kinds of supports than workers who become unemployed for other reasons. In this blog post, the PROPEL Center explores three of the key themes that emerged from the landscape review they conducted to identify workforce system approaches that better support displaced workers and help them get back on their feet.

REPORT | JANUARY 2023

Helping Displaced Workers -  Landscape Review

This landscape review provides an analysis on the effectiveness of programs that target displaced workers, identifies important questions on how to best support this population, and provides suggestions for further tailoring programs and practices to meet displaced workers’ needs. What we found:

• Displaced workers can spend significant lengths of time in unemployment. Black workers have historically been disproportionately affected by displacement as they are often among the first to be fired during economic contractions and are reemployed at significantly lower rates than white, Asian, and Latino workers.
• Displaced workers are often paid less at their new jobs and earnings losses are greater among individuals with low initial wages.

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REPORT | FEBRUARY 2023

Expanding the Evidence Base for Reconnecting Opportunity Youth Pathways to Thriving

This brief explores the research and practice evidence on strategies intended to support opportunity youth and identifies a researcher-practitioner learning agenda to support opportunity youth on a path to thriving. This brief also includes a research agenda that aims to improve the understanding of what works for opportunity youth. To better support opportunity youth, our experts identified two important priorities for evidence building.

BRIEF 2022 | MARCH 2022

The PROPEL Center at AIR: Providing Equitable Opportunity for Economic Mobility to America’s Workforce

This brief provides an overview of the PROPEL Center's work. With a $10 million grant from the AIR Opportunity Fund, PROPEL is launching a wide-ranging research, capacity building, and engagement strategy that leverages AIR’s deep technical assistance, research, and evaluation expertise.
 

PROPEL/PROMISE Center Precursors

Workforce Development and Economic Mobility/Prosperity Working Group (WDEMP)

Before it was officially established in July 2021, the PROMISE Center was shaped by the Workforce Development and Economic Mobility/Prosperity Working Group (WDEMP), which advocated for stronger evidence- and field-building to achieve a future-ready and resilient workforce and economy, with support from the AIR Opportunity Fund. Several landscape analyses evolved out of this work that laid the groundwork for for what is now the PROPEL Center. Explore the resources below to learn more.

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IN THE FIELD | APRIL 2021

Building the US Workforce for the Future: Key Challenges and Opportunities

AIR experts conducted a series of analyses to better understand current economic dynamics impacting workforce stability and preparation. Read this post to learn about the key takeaways and guideposts for building a strong, enduring workforce system.

BRIEF | APRIL 2021

Supporting Labor Market Resiliency and Future-Readiness: The Case for Measuring Skill Demand in Real Time

This brief summarizes how the nature of work is changing, and how the skills associated with jobs may continue to change. It also describes what AIR staff conceptualize as “future skills,” which must be accurately measured and understood to effectively align the supply and demand for future jobs.