Education & Workforce Development
Sector Partnerships
Hawaii’s Sector Partnerships are industry-led, community-supported workforce development collaboratives that build local, skilled talent pipelines for our state’s high-growth industries and strengthen our economy.
About the Program
Sector Partnerships are collaboratives of business leaders, from the same industry and in a shared labor market region, who work with education, workforce development, economic development and community organizations to address the workforce and other competitiveness needs of their industry. These regional, public-private partnerships are strong foundations to address talent shortages and create thriving economic and workforce ecosystems.
Sector Partnerships are a best practice nationally and are required by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).
Chamber of Commerce Hawaii serves as lead convener for the state, with critical support from Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and AE Consulting. Sector leads DBEDT Hawaii State Energy Office (Clean Energy), DBEDT Creative Industries Division (Creative Industries) and Healthcare Association of Hawaii (Healthcare) provide subject-matter expertise.
We work closely with the University of Hawaii and Hawaii Department of Education to build Kindergarten-to-Career pathways. Employers provide high quality work-based learning opportunities for students and teachers.
Collectively, our goal is to improve student preparedness and increase the overall number of students in high growth, in-demand pipelines to better meet Hawaii’s future workforce demands.
Workforce Development Collaboratives
Hawaii’s strong history of Sector Partnerships began in 2017 with the first convening of industry leaders by Chamber of Commerce Hawaii with the support of a grant from Strada Foundation to the University of Hawaii. Support provided to the Chamber from the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) continues the effort today, with additional funding support from the University of Hawaii’s Good Jobs Challenge federal grant, Hawaii P20, Harold K.L. Castle Foundation and Stupski Foundation.
Community of Practice
Sector leads lend their subject matter expertise to this important work and learn from each other in a Community of Practice.
Sector leads and Community of Practice partners include:
- Clean Energy – DBEDT Hawaii State Energy Office
- Creative Industries – DBEDT Creative Industries Division
- Engineering – Chamber of Commerce Hawaii
- Healthcare – Healthcare Association of Hawaii
- Information Technology – Chamber of Commerce Hawaii
Other Sectors to Engage With
The Sector Partnership framework to engage employers in workforce development is also successfully used by these Hawaii organizations.
Kindergarten-to-Career Pathways
Employers and educators collaborate on a sequence of work-based learning that begins with career exposure and awareness activities in elementary, middle and high school. Hawaii Department of Education’s Workforce Development Branch, school-level Academies and Career & Technical Education pathway leads are important partners in this work.
Degrees, skills attainment, certifications and on-the-job training opportunities such as internships are the focus in post-secondary. Together, this sequence of opportunities improves student preparedness for entry-level jobs and increases the number of students in the pipeline.
Employer-Led, Community-Supported
Industry leadership is key to the success of Sector Partnerships. Employer input on skills, credentials, qualifications and career pathways drive areas of focus and inform education curriculum.
Education, workforce development, economic development, philanthropy and community partners leverage resources for support.
Employers collaborate by:
- Working closely with educators and supporting student work-based learning
- Identifying in-demand entry-level jobs
- Developing career pathways from entry-level jobs
- Giving input on desired skills-training
- Providing internships and other training
- Entry-level employment
Workforce needs reports
Sector Partnerships take a data-driven approach to understanding supply and demand, skills and certifications employers seek, and near and long-term growth projections for each sector.
Clean Energy/Skilled Trades
Creative Industries
Information Technology
Sector Partnership Impact in our Schools
as of Summer 2024
Good Jobs Hawaii is a US Department of Commerce federally-funded workforce and skills-development program to help local residents attain high-quality entry level jobs in healthcare, technology, clean energy and creative industries.
Sector leads work with employers to translate needs into skills training, certifications, and on-the-job opportunities. Good Jobs aims to build equitable pathways to quality jobs for generations to come
Join Sector Partnerships
Strengthen Hawaii’s workforce pipelines by joining your industry peers in Sector Partnerships. Together, we can continue to build a stronger future for Hawaii’s workforce.
Sector Partnerships are Grant-funded.
Mahalo to our funders & partners that make this vital work possible.
