Advancing Talent Solutions for Cities
City governments are major employers in their communities, with more than 6.9 million city government workers across the United States. Many cities face workforce challenges ranging from difficulties finding qualified candidates to lengthy hiring processes and issues with employee engagement, development, and turnover.
These challenges limit career opportunities for workers in the public sector and make it harder for cities to deliver essential services to residents and support the economic vitality of communities. Through a partnership with the National League of Cities (NLC), AIR is working to explore these challenges and advance talent solutions for city governments.
The Partnership Between AIR and NLC
AIR and NLC are working together to gain a deeper understanding of the causes of city workforce challenges and designing solutions that city governments can adopt across the talent life cycle. In this work, we collaborate with cities to explore and implement policy and programmatic changes and share the knowledge gained with U.S. cities and partners.
Through research and technical assistance, we are helping to advance a range of talent solutions for city governments, including skills-based practices and work-based learning.
GROW: A Talent Development Initiative for Cities
The Growing and Retaining Our Workforce (GROW) initiative aims to help cities overcome long-standing workforce challenges and transform their approaches to talent development. Launched with NLC as a pilot and supported by AIR’s PROPEL Center in 2025, GROW brings together city leaders to modernize policies, practices, and programs to strengthen city talent pipelines and create clear on-ramps into local government careers. Through GROW, cities gain the tools and support they need to build a skilled, sustainable workforce ready to meet today’s—and tomorrow’s—public service needs.
Cities Advancing Skills-Based Practices
AIR and NLC partnered to examine the use of skills-based practices by city governments. Funded by Walmart, this research highlights the advantages that cities gain when adopting skills-based practices and identifies examples of city skills strategies across the talent life cycle. Strengthening Municipal Workforces Through Skills-Based Practices shares key findings from our research, including elements of success for city skills-based practices. Making the Case for Skills-Based City Governments outlines benefits and guiding questions that cities can use to explore adoption of skills-based practices.
Apprenticeship for Cities
Apprenticeship for Cities helped city governments explore apprenticeship programs as a solution to their talent challenges. From 2024 to 2025, AIR and NLC conducted this effort as part of AIR’s Source & Grow Talent apprenticeship initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. AIR and NLC provided information and technical assistance to leaders from 180 cities across the country interested in using apprenticeships to fill critical city government jobs. The Apprenticeship for Cities fact sheet helps cities get started with apprenticeship solutions.
