Philanthropic logics, transformative outcomes: A case study of Manufacturing Connect's demand-side labor market strategies in Chicago's metal manufacturing sector

In July 2014, Congress passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the long-overdue reauthorization of the 1998 Workforce Investment Act, which provides the majority of funding for state and local workforce development activities. Both in the Act itself and in policy memos and reports surrounding WIOA’s implementation, the federal government has encouraged (if not directly incentivized) state and local workforce institutions to engage employers more directly and actively. A January 2014 Presidential Memorandum terms this new focus “job-driven training” and calls for all federal workforce programs to engage with employers to actively identify what skills are needed, and design job training programs to respond to those needs (Obama, 2014). This federal call for state and local workforce programs to act as a bridge between employer needs (labor demand) and job training programs (which shape labor supply) is an acknowledgement of the effectiveness of a subset of workforce development programs that have played this role for decades, called workforce intermediaries. These organizations intermediate between training programs and networks of employers in particular industry sectors, and describe their work as “dual customer,” i.e. striving to equally serve the needs of both jobseekers and employers (Giloth, 1998).Master of City and Regional Plannin