Pioneer Valley Labor Market Blueprint

The final Pioneer Valley Labor Market Blueprint (updated 2020) was developed as an end-product of the process outlined under the “Massachusetts Regional Workforce Development Planning”.
The Current Workplan for FY2021 highlights the goals and strategies of the Pioneer Valley Regional Team for Fiscal Year 2021 onwards.
The End of Year Report for Year 3 submitted on July 12, 2021 highlights the major accomplishments, activities, and work of the Pioneer Valley Regional Planning Team
The Mid-Point Report for Year 3 submitted on February 26, 2021 and highlights the major accomplishments, activities, and work of the Regional Planning Team.
The Mid-Point Report for Year 1 submitted December 14, 2018 highlights the major accomplishments, activities and work of the Regional Planning team.

The Pioneer Valley Supply and Demand Data as of October 8, 2019 will help the Pioneer Valley Regional team confirm regional high priority industries and occupations and evaluate any new demographic, labor pool, and talent pipeline considerations impacting workforce skills gaps.

The Report on Manufacturing Training printed January 2021 highlights the project deliverables in Year 1 of the MassBridge initiative for the West Regoin. MassBridge is an initiative led by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development (EOHED), and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

Visualization: Priority Industries – this link will direct you to an interactive page showing you projected job growth through 2024 in our region’s priority and critical industries.
Visualization: Priority Occupations – this link will direct you to an interactive page that will show you the supply gap/surplus and median wage through 2024 for occupations within our region’s priority and critical industries.
Occupational Job Openings – this page will direct you to a table of job openings and replacements within priority occupations through 2024. Job openings refer to any new job created, while job replacements are any jobs that become available due to attrition.

The Educator Work Group

The Educator Work Group is a sub-group of the Pioneer Valley Regional Planning Blueprint team. The group currently consists of three community colleges, a state university, and representative secondary schools in the region. They serve to advise the Core Regional Planning team about needs and trends in the educational sector and to provide information on current and planned education and training programs related to workforce.

During the summer of 2020, in partnership with the regions, vocational technical high schools, three regional Community Colleges, and Westfield State University, the Regional Planning Blueprint Educator Work Group developed an Inventory of the technical programs/courses conducted at those educational institutions that are associated with the Priority Industries and Other Critical Industries identified in the Blueprint.  The information was summarized and compiled into the Summary Report of Technical Programs. In April of 2021, the Educator Workgroup updated and created an Addendum to the Summary Report of Technical Programs – Graduation Data Employment Status.

The Educator Work Group has also developed Career Pathways Maps (see below) for the three Priority Industries that contain additional and complementary information, including general links to costs and student financial aid. The career pathways maps complement the information and data contained in both the Blueprint and the new Summary Report of Technical Programs.

For counselors providing career assistance and looking to learn more about priority occupations within the three priority industries, job descriptions, and salary ranges, please follow the links to our priority industry pages:

Summary of the Technical Programs

A Summary Report  of the technical programs/courses conducted at the regional community colleges and vocational technical high schools, with additional information on specific courses at Westfield State University, was produced by the MassHire Workforce Boards of Franklin-Hampshire and Hampden Counties as part of the implementation of the Pioneer Valley Labor Market Blueprint- 2018-2022.

Addendum to Report on Course Capacity for Priority Industries Only.

Second Addendum to Report on Non-Credit Career Programs in Healthcare.

Fourth Addendum to Report is on Adult Basic Education Program Capacity in Region 2.

Massachusetts Regional Workforce Development Planning

16 Regions of the MassHire Franklin Hampshire Workforce Board

State Strategy

Goal 1: Align economic, workforce, and education systems to coordinate systems based on skill needs in regions. 

The Governor has designated a new set of regional boundaries that roll up existing workforce development areas into a smaller set of regions. The new configuration organizes the 16 Workforce Investment Areas into 7 regions. 

Numbered map of Massachusetts State Workforce Board Regions

MA WIOA Workforce Development Regions

The purpose of the regional planning under the Workforce Skills Cabinet (WSC) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) is to use the same regional boundaries between economic development, workforce, education, and key partners to identify business demand for skills, create regional strategies, and align existing resources to this process. The goal is to ensure that regional employers, educators, economic development entities, regional planning organizations, and workforce training officials are coordinated in a way that creates strong talent pipelines, for both middle-skilled and highly skilled jobs. 

See all of the Regional Team Members here. (PDF)

To learn more about the Regional Planning process and the expectations set by the WSC, download the MA Workforce Skills Cabinet Regional Planning PPT. (PDF)

Read past versions of the Labor Market blueprint here.