LA BASIN
WORKFORCE
NETWORK

WORKING TOGETHER

Communities Collaborating
Across a Region

Covering a geographic range of 4,088 square miles, the Los Angeles Basin is home to nearly 10.1 million people — more than a fourth of California’s population. With an estimated 244,000 businesses fueling its vitality, the LA Basin represents the world’s 19th largest economy. This diverse region encompasses 88 incorporated cities and many more unincorporated communities — each with its own distinct identity, strengths, opportunities, and challenges. The LA Basin Workforce Network (LABWN)* is honored to play a role in supporting this thriving, eclectic, fast-paced, and forward-looking region.

The LABWN is an innovative partnership between seven community-centric Workforce Development Boards located across the LA Basin, with a long and successful history of working together to strengthen our region. This unique collaboration also encompasses California’s largest and most diverse network of workforce service providers and partners, including:

  • America’s Job Centers of California (AJCCs), youth programs, and business centers
  • Hundreds of community-based and non-profit organizations
  • Labor organizations
  • 113 accredited colleges and universities
  • 21 community colleges and 80 school districts
  • 130 Chambers of Commerce
  • 2 Job Corps Centers
  • Local government agencies

Together, we’re joining forces, sharing resources and best practices, and innovating new strategies aimed at connecting our communities’ job seekers and employers for a stronger region.

View the WIOA Local Workforce Development Plans 2017-2020 >

View the Regional Workforce Development Plan 2018-2020 & Regional Workforce Development Plan 2019-2021 >

*The LA Basin Workforce Network is a WIOA regional planning unit.

Goals and Priorities: Working Solutions
to Our Region’s Labor Demands

The LABWN region-wide collaboration provides a framework for demand-driven services and career pathways that offer young people and job seekers greater opportunities for upward mobility and self-sufficiency. Balancing a local focus with our regional reach, we identify, develop, and support innovative programs and initiatives targeting key industry sectors vital to our region, while focusing on our communities’ most underserved and vulnerable residents. The LABWN’s priorities include:

  • Developing demand-driven and industry-responsive training programs that reflect the needs of our region’s diverse and vital industries and employers.
  • Ensuring our programs are inclusive and accessible for a broad range of community members, including the most vulnerable, who seek quality training and life-changing job opportunities.
  • Aligning workforce services, education, and economic development in a common goal to strengthen essential workplace and job-specific vocational skills in key industry sectors for our region.
  • Creating regional career pathways that connect job seekers to quality jobs in high-growth industries with good wage-earning potential.
  • Continuing to build regional coalitions that lead to innovative approaches and improved services that build our region’s competitive workforce.

MEETING THE NEED

1 in 6

young people ages 18-24 in the LA Basin are out of school and work1

60,000

people in LA experience homelessness on any given night2

288,590

Veterans live in the LA Basin and experience higher unemployment rates3

75%

of formerly incarcerated individuals can’t find a job after release4

13.5%

unemployment rate for people with disabilities in LA County5

The LABWN is collaborating at the community level and across our region to address these challenges, with solutions that transform lives and deliver results.

THE LA BASIN WORKFORCE NETWORK

UNIQUELY QUALIFIED

LABWN partners have been collaborating to connect job seekers to careers for 40 years with successful results. We bring proven expertise and specialized training in assisting vulnerable residents to overcome significant barriers so they can find and keep life-changing jobs.

INNOVATIVE MODEL

The LABWN’s innovative model of regional collaboration enables us to standardize processes and procedures so we can deliver services with streamlined efficiencies; share and maximize expertise, resources, and best practices across local workforce development boards, job centers and partners; and leverage unique strengths of all partners to promote better outcomes for job seekers and employers alike.

LOCALIZED EXPERTISE

Regional in reach and vision, the LABWN is also focused on meeting the workforce needs of individual communities across the LA Basin. Leveraging our community-based knowledge and expertise, we support education and training solutions that respond directly to local labor demands, employer goals, and resident needs.

COMMUNITY DRIVEN

The LABWN collaborates with a range of locally based partners and services providers to make sure youth and job seekers have the resources and support they need to succeed. For every initiative we develop, we actively solicit and integrate input from our local community, education, and business leaders, as well as the residents directly impacted by our programs.

WHO WE SERVE

YOUTH

The LABWN connects youth ages 14 to 24 across the region to a wide range of educational resources, work experience, training, employment assistance, and support services. Our strategies and programs focus largely on disconnected youth who are in the foster system, experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities, out of school and work, and involved with the justice system. In addition to academic and job skills, we help young people develop life skills.

Learn more >

JOB SEEKERS

A vital part of the LABWN network, America’s Job Centers of California (AJCCs) serve hundreds of thousands of job seekers every year across the region with a complete spectrum of services, support, and resources. Through our AJCCs, training programs, apprenticeships, and other partners, we help connect individuals to long-term employment and high-growth career pathways that lead to self-sufficiency and dignity.

Learn more >

EMPLOYERS

The LABWN encompasses a regional network of business centers, staff, and solutions to assist employers with customized training programs; recruitment, hiring, staffing, and retention strategies; start-up and new business navigation; layoff aversion and rapid response; loans, tax incentives, and Opportunity Zones; labor market information; and more.

Learn more >

PARTNERS

The LABWN collaborates with a diverse range of partners across the LA Basin, including colleges and universities; adult education and vocational schools; apprenticeships; labor organizations; businesses and business associations; community-based and non-profit organizations; local, state, and federal government agencies; and service providers — all working together to support the success of job seekers and the businesses who employ them.

Learn more >

WHO WE ARE

The LABWN is a regional collaboration of seven workforce development boards located across LA County.

1. Los Angeles Performance Partnership Pilot (LAP3) 2017-2020 Strategic Plan Serving Disconnected Youth, July 1, 2017.
2. 2019 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count Results. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. June 4, 2019.
3. 2015-2020 Los Angeles: People, Industry and Jobs. Institute for Applied Economics. Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. May 2016.
4. Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019. Prison Policy Initiative. March 19, 2019. Prisonpolicy.org.
5. Annual Unemployment of Disabled Persons in Los Angeles County.
6. 2016-2026 Local Employment Projections Highlights. Employment Development Department, State of California. labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov