The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development is located at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. It is a university-based research and policy center dedicated to raising the effectiveness of the American workplace by strengthening workforce education, placement and training programs and policies. The Center’s efforts concentrate on both nurturing concrete innovations in workforce practices, as well as addressing broad-scale economic policy changes that ensure Americans receive the education and training they need to be productive and prosperous in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.

The Center provides an independent source of analysis for reform and innovation in policy-making and employs cutting-edge research and evaluation projects to identify best practices in workforce development and employment and workplace policy. It is also engaged in significant partnerships with the private sector to design effective education and training programs and is committed to assisting job seekers and workers attain the information, education, and skills training they need to move up the economic ladder.

The Center embodies its slogan ‘Solutions at Work’ by teaming with partners and clients to translate cutting-edge research and analysis into practices and programs that companies, unions, schools, CBOs, and government officials can leverage to strengthen their workforces, create jobs, and remain competitive. Ultimately, the Center serves as a laboratory to create innovative, applied solutions to well-documented workplace challenges. These include the gap between worker skills and employer needs; under-performing government programs; economic disruptions resulting from a globalized economy; and the persistence of poverty despite work.

The Center provides clients and partners with an array of services: 

• Assessing the effectiveness of workforce and education programs, underscoring best practices in education, training, and economic development, while also identifying emerging challenges that employers and policymakers must address. These would include the growing ‘spatial mismatch’ between where workers live and where employers locate. 
• Leveraging the Center’s research on labor issues and its insight into workforce programs to develop information technology products designed to empower job seekers and assist workforce program operators. The Center also analyzes industry workforce needs and how to span gaps between labor supply and demand. These products include a training program consumer report card (www.njtrainingresources.org) that provides New Jersey training programs and facilitates searches and comparisons of these programs based on the preferences of job seekers. 
• Distributing and publicizing research findings to educate business and union leaders, policymakers, community members, as well as media and the academic communities, on critical workforce and education issues that relate to the emerging global, knowledge-driven economy. The Center’s survey series, Work Trends, is a key component of this effort, receiving widespread attention from media outlets and policymakers. 
• Developing curricula, training materials, and development courses and programs for frontline staff and managers in public workforce agencies and community-based organizations. The capacity-building activities are produced through a myriad of courses, seminars, conferences, workshops, and curricula available both on and offline.