4 min read
August 22, 2025

Using the “Jobs that Mobilize” framework to fuel upward mobility.

The promise of upward mobility remains unmet for many of America’s workers. Within the labor market, frustrations abound, for workers and employers alike:

  • Employers face labor shortages while capable workers remain locked in low-wage
  • Workers without college degrees and other familiar credentials can’t translate their skills into the parlance of employers who use recognizable credentials to screen for jobs.
  • Education and training programs and placement agencies struggle to find jobs for their graduates because they don’t know which workplace career trajectories lead to upward mobility.

Failing to resolve these and other stumbling blocks is especially frustrating since today’s “big data” creates more information about employers, workers, and opportunities than ever before. Today’s “challenge isn’t gathering more information—it’s making sense of the information we have and putting it to work,” according to the Burning Glass Institute report Jobs That Mobilize: A Data‑Driven Playbook for America’s Workforce.

The Jobs That Mobilize report describes a structured, six-step framework and process for bringing together community stakeholders to promote worker upward mobility. Donors can use the report to take a lead role in marshaling partnerships, supporting evidence-based strategies, and building community capacity and structures to align education, training, employer needs, and worker aspirations. They can create cross-sector partnerships, invest in innovation, and foster system-wide action on workforce development issues.

The Jobs that Mobilize Framework

The Burning Glass Institute report offers a framework that equips donors with a vision, strategy, and blueprint for action. It includes examples of what this informed process looks like, along with possible performance measures for all these factors, so donors can develop a community report card to track progress in achieving their plan.  

The JTM framework begins with understanding your local skill landscape. Analyze your region’s unique skill concentrations and gaps. Look across geographic and generational mobility patterns, including which workers can move up easily and who remain stuck and need training intervention and support. Determine your location quotient—your community’s economic specialization and comparative advantages. This supply-side analysis lays the foundation for a demand-side analysis—identifying available jobs.

The next step is to identify your community’s jobs that mobilize, by ranking local occupations using four dimensions:

  • worker opportunity, especially wage patterns and skill levels.
  • employer demand for specific jobs and skill requirements.
  • community impact, especially barriers to work like transportation, and equity concerns like overlooked groups.
  • strategic economic issues, especially describing key sectors where you want to grow jobs.

 

Stakeholders can then generate a shortlist of jobs that mobilize, validating them with employers, community leaders, educators, and trainers.

Now that you have both a supply and demand analysis, the next step is to build detailed skill profiles. For each job that mobilizes, enumerate both the technical competencies and “work-ready” soft skills required. Group these into functional categories and define benchmarks for proficiency that both learners and employers can understand. This skill profiling frees communities from overreliance on degrees. Then, validate all this with employers. Check back with employers to consider how their workplace norms vary and impact the skill profiles. This will help all parties develop a shared language that defines proficiency levels, aligns credentialing requirements, and creates meaningful assessments. All this anchors the framework in real-world hiring practices.

These insights need to be practically distilled by mapping career pathways. Identify how workers can transition into jobs that matter. Develop clear, skill-based routes to higher-paying occupations. This becomes a transparent, equitable route from low-wage work to stable, higher-paying careers. And finally, communities must design education and training programs. Collaborate with providers to develop upskilling programs that are aligned with the skills you have identified. Be sure to include personal support services and navigation services so program participants have what they need to complete the program. And make sure you award portable, skill-based credentials.  

 

An Overview of the Jobs That Mobilize Framework

Step

Action

1.    Map the skill landscape.

Identify local strengths, gaps, and mobility patterns.

2.    Identify jobs that mobilize.

Highlight roles with strong wages, growth, and accessibility.

3.    Build skill profiles.

Define technical/soft skills with clear benchmarks.

4.    Validate with employers.

Align skill definitions and hiring practices.

5.    Map career pathways.

Chart skill-based routes from feeder jobs to jobs that mobilize.

6.    Design training solutions

Develop programs, credentials, and personal supports.

The JTM report provides a case study of how this was done in the greater Houston area, called UpSkill Houston. This initiative helped workers identify and train for significantly better-paying jobs that were within reach (such as a customer service representative adding skills to be an IT network specialist, or a medical assistant training up to be a surgical technician). The result? Workers have seen wage gains averaging nearly 15%, a tangible boost in economic mobility.

The Bottom Line

The Houston story illustrates a core message of the Jobs That Mobilize report: four-year degrees don’t define opportunity. Instead, identifying and elevating transferable, demonstrable skills can unlock access, equity, and upward mobility.

Here are five ways donors can provide financial support using the JTM framework.

  1. Support stakeholder partnerships: Fund coalitions that bring workforce boards, educators, employers, and community groups together. Invest in the systems and analytics needed to undertake the JTM process.
  2. Underwrite employer training pilots: These training programs should be designed with employers. They should incorporate work-ready assessments and include opportunities for non-degree candidates.
  3. Champion skill-based credentials: Provide funds for institutions to develop micro-credentials or badges tied directly to jobs. Help schools and training centers align their curricula to employer needs.
  4. Expand career navigation: Fund career counselors, navigators, or digital platforms that help workers, especially those from underserved backgrounds, discover new jobs, understand requirements, and access training pathways.
  5. Measure outcomes and expand what works: Track wage gains, job transitions, retention in target occupations, and diversification of access. Use evidence to refine efforts and support expansion.

The Jobs That Mobilize framework offers donors a rare combination of analytical rigor and practical design. It equips them with a roadmap to foster workforce systems that are data-smart, equitable, and durable. It shows how to create a workforce system where talent is recognized, rewarded, and has the opportunity to pursue upward mobility. Jobs that mobilize are not just jobs. They are a means to lifelong stability and community resilience. And donors can support the tools to make that vision real.

Bruno V. Manno is a senior advisor at the Progressive Policy Institute, leads its Pathways to Opportunity What Works Lab, and is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy. Follow him on LinkedIn.