How could Texas’ new workforce training laws impact students, companies?

Texans looking for work could receive additional support under new state laws designed to reinforce the career training that has positioned Texas as a leader in workforce development.

One of the most significant actions for workforce training was House Bill 120, which funnels $213.5 million into public school districts for career and technical education programs, according to Texas’ Legislative Budget Board.

The Texas Legislature’s session ended in early June after lawmakers had months to bolster workforce development programs. Several of the bills passed aim to expand programs for career-technical education and dual enrollment. But many proposals failed, including efforts to fund more school counseling and career advising.

Workforce training is crucial in Texas, which operates the world’s eighth-largest economy. That’s because 63% of jobs in Texas will require education beyond high school within the next six years, according to a report by Georgetown University.

This means over 9 million jobs in Texas will require a postsecondary education in 2031, according to Georgetown’s report. Over 8 million jobs in Texas required education beyond high school in 2021, according to the report. During that 10-year period, Texas is expected to add over 1.8 million more jobs, according to the report.

But only 32% of Texas workers possess the necessary qualifications for available jobs, while about 47% of these jobs require postsecondary skills training, according to the Texas Workforce Commission’s Labor Market Information Department.

Without skilled workers in Texas, companies might decide to take their business elsewhere, advocates say. This comes at a time when North Texas and the state are growing dramatically — both in population and workforce.

North Texas has over 7.9 million residents, and is expected to grow to more than 9.1 million by 2035 and over 11 million by 2050, according to the North Central Texas Council of Governments, a voluntary association of local governments in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. These figures are based on the populations of Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman, Rockwall and Tarrant counties.

The region’s workforce population is projected to grow to more than 6.5 million by 2035 and more than 8.1 million by 2050, according to the council.

Melissa Robbins, CEO of the nonprofit National Association of Workforce Development Professionals, said job training matters, because the country is experiencing a shortage of qualified workers.

That is why “you see help wanted signs everywhere” among companies trying to sustain themselves or grow their operations, she said.

“To have a strong economy, we need to have strong businesses,” Robbins said, “and to have strong businesses, we need to have a strong and willing and ready talent pipeline.”

Early college programs and rural partnerships

To address this skills gap, Gov. Greg Abbott’s emergency priority list for the Legislature emphasized increased funding for career training across early college programs and partnerships in rural areas.

“This funding and this policy empowers students and teachers with the skills and support they need to succeed and strengthen our Texas workforce,” said Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado.

“As business and industry looks to expand in Texas,” Buckley said, “or they look to move to Texas, or people start businesses in Texas, they know that there is a very deliberate pathway for Texas providing the education and the skills needed for our future workforce.”

Yasmin Fallahkhair, senior state network manager at the National Skills Coalition – a nonprofit organization advocating for equitable policies that expand skills training and economic opportunity for all Americans — said Texas is making strides in career pathways and credential attainment as its job growth rate continues to outpace the national average.

But Texas still lags behind other states in providing adequate support services to the low-income residents struggling to participate in and complete career training programs, she said.

“Texas still has a lot more that it can do,” Fallahkhair said. “It has a widening economic gap that’s led to one of the nation’s highest poverty rates. Two in five Texans struggle to meet their basic needs, and this is even more acute among Black, Latino and rural communities.”

New funds for career development

The investments in workforce training can be used to fund new career and technical programs among school districts, said Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, in a statement on June 11.

Districts can also invest in instructional facilities, reimburse industry certification exams and strengthen partnerships between school districts and employers using the funds, he said.

That funding can bolster initiatives like the Dallas Independent School District’s career institutes. The institutes give students hands-on experience in 18 credentialed programs designed to train them for high-wage, high-demand jobs after high school, said Lynn McBee, the city of Dallas’ workforce development czar.

Garrett Williams is a 20-year-old assistant team lead for express service at the Mercedes-Benz of Plano dealership. He took classes at Flower Mound High School and Lewisville ISD’s Technology, Exploration & Career Center East program.

Williams said those courses prepared him for Collin College, where he graduated this year with an associate’s degree in automotive technology. He said the new funding will go a long way.

“We’d have more programs, more opportunities for these students in terms of equipment, instructors being able to hold more classes, but keep the sizes small, to where we can still have this one-on-one instruction,” he said.

The new allotment will triple funding among districts from $50 per student to $150 per student, said Katrina Fraser, Commit Partnership’s director of postsecondary education policy. The new laws also create subsidies for teacher certification in career-technical education and more funding for career-tech in rural areas, she said.

“If we want to continue our economic competitiveness that we are seeing in the state of Texas, it’s essential that we continue to expand both educational and economic opportunities for our young people,” Fraser said. (Commit is a supporter of the Future of North Texas initiative at The Dallas Morning News.)

A separate supplemental appropriations bill, House Bill 500, will provide an additional $89.5 million to community colleges to reinforce the work they’re already doing in career development.

Lawmakers also passed Senate Joint Resolution 59, a proposed constitutional amendment that would create an $850 million endowment for the Texas State Technical College System, said Creighton, who called it “a major step forward in preparing students for high-wage, high-demand jobs.”

If approved by voters on Nov. 4, SJR 59 would use money from special funds in the state treasury outside the general revenue fund to support educational capital projects and equipment purchases at the Texas State Technical College System.

The Secretary of State will draw numbers for constitutional amendments to be listed as propositions for the November election, according to Texas State Technical College.

But an effective system also requires wraparound services, such as assistance with child care and transportation, to ensure residents can complete their career training, get a job and maintain their employment, Fallahkhair said.

Future opportunities to improve workforce readiness

One measure that failed to pass in the Legislature would have given schools additional funding to hire or maintain enough career advisers for students.

Education advocates say access to such advisers boosts students’ chances for success and financial stability, but high student-to-counselor ratios and limited resources hinder that support.

Additional proposals that failed include the creation of an apprenticeship training program sponsorship, a constitutional amendment to create a health care workforce education fund, and a new film academy to train workers for Texas’ media industries.

Many of these bills failed to pass because lawmakers didn’t have enough time to amend or vote on them, said Kelsey Erickson Streufert, chief public affairs officer at the Texas Restaurant Association.

Lawmakers also failed to pass proposals to create business tax breaks and a matching program to help employers provide child care employee benefits to their workforce. This matters for the economy, advocates say, because early childhood education prepares the next generation of workers, and it gives parents and guardians time to participate in the workforce.

“We’ll be back next session with some mechanism that will help employers provide more of these types of benefits, so that we can get child care to more working families who need it,” Streufert said.

Is Texas leading in workforce development?

While Texas’ workforce advocates say the state is a national leader, states such as Maryland, Oregon and Colorado also perform well in workforce development, national advocates say.

They point to how Colorado invests a lot of state money into its programs. Advocates also called Oregon a leader in developing initiatives for stackable credentials, which involves individuals earning smaller certifications that contribute to larger qualifications, such as associate or bachelor’s degrees.

Texas takes it further with its synergy between local workforce development boards, state agencies and training providers, Robbins said.

Workforce development professionals in Texas also actively participate in national conferences to develop strategies that support employers and job-seekers, she said.

But despite Texas’ significant investments in education and workforce systems, the state’s critical skills gap still threatens its economic competitiveness, advocates say.

The lack of stronger, comprehensive support in child care, transportation and digital literacy prevents many residents from participating in and completing their education and training programs, hindering their economic mobility and their ability to fill jobs, Fallahkhair said.

These barriers are significant, as two out of three young adults in Dallas County cannot afford essential living costs, including food, shelter and health care, according to the Commit Partnership. Three out of four Dallas County public school students, and roughly six out of 10 Texas children, come from low-income families, according to the nonprofit.

Advocates fear local Texans could be shut out of good-paying jobs, especially as millions of new residents are expected to relocate to the state over the next three decades.

“What’s at stake if we’re not engaging kids, staying connected, is … we’re gonna end up filling the jobs with people that are imported from wherever else,” McBee said. “That’ll be great for our economy, but it makes the city grow further and further apart.”

This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.