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Workforce Priorities

Tennessee’s working-age population is facing downward pressure as organic population growth and in-migration to our state continue to decline, and as retirements among our large and experienced generation of Baby Boomers continue to accelerate. To ensure that our state can sustain economic growth for the long term, Tennessee must work to boost labor force participation and the productivity of our state’s workforce.

 

Our Tennessee business leaders believe that state policy must focus on eliminating barriers to labor force participation and on forging firmer, clearer pathways leading to productive careers, not merely to jobs. To enable every working-aged Tennessean to report for duty in our state’s workforce, we believe that public policy must support the development of key workforce supports and align our state’s public higher education investments even more closely to the skills our workers need to succeed in the advanced and emerging occupations which will drive Tennessee’s long-term economic growth.

 

Make Child Care Available & Affordable

  • Access to affordable child care is a must for Tennessee parents to join our labor force.

  • Downward trends in organic population growth and migration mean Tennessee must do all it can to remove labor force participation barriers.

  • Child care quality is also important - it’s the first “school” for Tennessee’s future workforce.

  • Tennessee must remove more barriers to expansion of child care - while maintaining safety - and support growth in our child care workforce.

Make Housing Available & Affordable

  • Availability of affordable housing is key to sustaining in-migration to our state - and to helping young Tennesseans stay here.

  • Housing policy must both support our urban population centers and sustain our rural areas.

  • State policies can support innovative local housing financing and regulatory reforms.

Further Align Higher Ed to High-Demand, Well-Paying Occupations

  • State investments in public higher education have begun to align more closely with the skills needed by our workforce in the 21st century.

  • Tennessee should move even further in that direction, using data to identify and align state funding even more closely with post-secondary courses that support high-demand/-paying jobs.

  • Higher ed job alignment should support both our state’s traditional industries as well as emerging ones like A.I, nuclear, and quantum.

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