WORKFORCE CONNECTIONS - Vol. 58

In This Issue:

State & Federal Policy Updates
MWA Updates: Member Updates
News From Around the Sector: Jobs, funding, news and updates

Sign-Up for this Newsletter

**Please check your Spam or Junk folders if you have signed up and are not receiving our newsletter.**

PUBLIC POLICY UPDATES

State Public Policy

State Legislature Update

194th Session of the State Legislature

On January 1st, the two-year State Legislative Session kicked off, seeing a fresh start and fresh faces. The 200-person bicameral body welcomes 22 new members across the House and Senate, although much of the top leadership remained unchanged. House Speaker Ron Mariano remains in the top spot for Democrats, along with Senate President Karen Spilka on the opposite side of the building. Rep. Bradley Jones and Sen. Bruce Tarr retain their top positions among the Republican minority in their respective branches

Both branches outlined various priorities over the next two-year session, including major rules changes to combat the “racing to beat the legislative clock” at the end of July of the 2nd year, a recurring problem that has impeded bills making it over the finish line. The leadership in both branches also anticipated reacting to the incoming Trump Administration, including changes to federal programs and immigration to name just a few.

Legislation, supported by the MWA was filed this month by Rep. Aaron Saunders & Sen. Patricia Jehlen, Bill HD.2780/Bill SD.1121, An Act to make Workforce Outcomes Public and Accessible. This legislation would require timely access to Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) wage data to help the workforce system better understand employment outcomes of the individuals served by the publicly funded workforce development system.

The next major milestone in the legislative process is committee assignments, where chairs will be named for the various subject matter committees, and for bills to be assigned to committee.

Gov. Healey Releases Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Proposal

On January 22nd, the Healey-Driscoll Administration released their FY26 State Budget Proposal. Healey’s budget calls for approximately $62 million in state spending, which includes nearly $2 billion in spending from revenues from the Fair Share income surtax, now in its second year. The surtax revenue, which is required to be spent on transportation and education, will dedicate $764 million towards transportation via the Commonwealth Transportation Fund, including leveraging dollars to borrow additional capital and stabilize the MBTA’s budget shortfall. $1.185 billion of the dollars are allotted to education, including the continuation of funding the Student Opportunity Act, fully funding C3 child care provider grants to help stabilize the Commonwealth’s childcare crisis, as well as dollars for higher education campuses and Innovation/Career Pathways programs, to name a few.

The Workforce Development Line Items that the MWA track can be seen below. Many items saw a decrease over FY25 Spending.

Career Center One-Stop Line Item: $8,253,620
YouthWorks Line Item: $15,740,000
School-to-Career Connecting Activities: $6,531,266
Workforce Competitiveness Trust Fund: $10,000,000
Career Technical Institutes: $8,985,600
Registered Apprenticeships: $3,315,14

MWA will continue to monitor and advocate for these line items as the budget goes through the legislative process starting this spring.

Supplemental Budget filed by Gov. Healey to spend excess Fair Share Revenue

In addition to the FY26 state budget, the Healey-Driscoll Administration filed a $1.32 billion supplemental spending bill, funded by excess Fair Share Revenue, that allocates $857 million towards transportation and $463.5 million for education.

The bulk of the transportation funding will be allocated towards the MBTA to address findings from a federal audit. $67 million is slated to fund the Commonwealth’s Fare Relief Program for income eligible participants. Another $25 million will be allocated to Regional Transit Authorities for workforce and training initiatives.

Relative to the education spending, $30 million will be used to address the growing waitlist for ESOL services and programs, with an emphasis on vocational learning. ESOL services have been strained as the state continues to grapple with incoming migrants in need of language and career services. Another $32.5 million will be allocated to the Reimagining High School Initiative. Importantly this money includes expansions for early college and innovation pathways programs. The spending bill will have to traverse through the legislative process at the beginning of a new legislative session. MWA will track the progress and keep members informed, with a particular focus on the programs impacting workforce development and youth.

Unemployment Tax Liability

The Healey-Driscoll Administration announced a deal with the outgoing Biden Administration just days before the Trump Administration took office relative to the $2.5 billion the Commonwealth owed the federal government for the misuse of federal pandemic unemployment dollars.

Under the deal, Massachusetts will be required to pay back $2.1 billion over the next ten years. The payback funding will be drawn from the State’s yearly budget, as opposed to the already overburdened Unemployment Trust Fund. This, importantly, will mean employers who pay into the fund will not see their rates increased because of the payback.

Despite the deal, this has prompted the Governor to direct the Secretary of Labor and Finance Secretary to conduct a review of the UI Solvency Trust Fund, and has lead some business groups to call for more targeted reforms to the Fund. Previous efforts, including those in 2022 when a UI Solvency Trust Fund Commission was born out of the legislature, have failed to come to agreement on significant reforms.

Wage Transparency Law Updates

Following the signing of a new Wage Transparency and Data Law last summer by Gov. Healey, The Secretary of State and Executive Office of Labor & Workforce Development have launched efforts to notify employers of their responsibilities under the law.

A major aspect of the law is to collect wage and demographic data from employers, which will be aggregated and published online to give businesses, employees and the public a better representation of wage data and discrepancies.

These new requirements can be shared with employers and partners subject to the law.

See Secretary of State’s collection site here:

EEO Wage and Workforce Data Reports

See EOLWD’s FAW page here:

Workforce Data Reporting FAQs | Mass.gov

December 2024 Unemployment Rate and Economic Analysis

On January 24th, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development released the unemployment rate for December 2024 and the revised rate for November 2024. Click here to read the 01/24/25 state press release. The December 2024 estimates show 3,701,800 Massachusetts residents were employed and 158,700 were unemployed, for a total labor force of 3,860,400. The unemployment rate at 4.1 percent was 0.1 percentage points higher than the revised November rate of 4.0 percent. Over-the-month, the December labor force increased by 6,500 from 3,853,900 in November, with 1,100 more residents employed and 5,500 more residents unemployed.

The labor force participation rate, the share of the working age population employed and unemployed, increased by 0.1 percent to 66.5 percent. The labor force was up 110,500 from the December 2023 estimate of 3,749,900 following the annual revision, with 73,700 more employed residents, and 37,000 more unemployed residents.

December 2024 Employment Overview

Education and Health Services gained 4,200 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 18,900 were added.

Professional, Scientific, and Business Services gained 1,800 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 3,100 were added.

Leisure and Hospitality gained 1,200 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 6,700 were added.

Other Services gained 800 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 1,000 were added.

Trade, Transportation, and Utilities had no change in 0 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 1,200 were lost.

Government lost 100 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 6,000 were added.

Manufacturing lost 400 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 4,700 were lost.

Information lost 400 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 5,400 were lost.

Construction lost 500 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 1,600 were added.

Financial Activities lost 600 jobs over-the-month. Over-the-year, 200 were added.

Detailed labor market information is available here.

Federal Public Policy

Trump 2.0

With the Trump Administration being sworn in on January 20th, there have already been a litany of Executive Orders signed by President Trump. Executive Orders signed on the first day of Trump’s second presidency ranged from economic issues, to immigration promises made during his campaign, to rescinding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion efforts by the Biden administration. The impacts of the second Trump Administration are reverberating across the federal government and the country.

Recently, Trump signed an Executive Order to “pause” all federal grants and financial assistance programs. This Order does not include pauses to individual benefits, such as food stamps, social security and Medicare. The Order requires that all federal agencies pause these targeted funds, and report back to the Office of Management and Budget to ensure they align with the President’s priorities. Litigation has already been filed by several non-profit organizations across the nation, leading to a temporary injunction on the order until legal arguments can be made.

A New Congress, Still a Slim Majority

After a hectic election cycle in November, Republicans control the Senate and House of Representative, albeit by a slim majority. Sen. John Thune was re-elected as Senate Majority Leader, leading the fifty three Republican majority. On the House side, Congressman Mike Johnson was re-elected as Speaker of the House. The Speaker nomination process exemplifies the slim 218 to 215 majority the Republicans hold in the House. Dissenting Republicans can still throw off any plans Speaker Johnson and his leadership team have to try to carry out the Trump Administration’s agenda. Budget Reconciliation is likely one of the top priorities for the Republican led Congress, looking to claw back and cut funds appropriated under the prior Congress

With the new Republican majority, comes new committee chairs. On the Senate side, the Senate HELP Committee will be chaired by Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey remains on the HELP committee, as well as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as the Ranking Minority Member. The House Education and Workforce Committee will be led by Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg.

Given the rollercoaster WIOA Reauthorization went through at the end of last session, it is unclear where on the priority list WIOA falls for new leadership. However, there is familiarity with WIOA and related programs from the new chairs, and could mean another push to get WIOA Reauthorization over the finish line in this Congress. The MWA is working with our federal delegation and partners to pursue a better version of WIOA than the version that nearly passed in December of 2024.

MWA AND MEMBER UPDATES

The MassHire Greater New Bedford

Workforce Board appoints Michael Santos

as its new Executive Director/CEO

Congratulations to Michael!

To read more click here.

Thank you to MassHire Central for sharing this Success Story!

NEWS FROM AROUND THE SECTOR

There are so many job postings and funding announcements, we moved our News from Around the Sector section to our website, where you can access the news, jobs, funding announcements and more anytime throughout the month. Go to: www.massworkforce.com/around-the-sector.

Here is a just sample of the events, funding opportunities, jobs, and more posted on our website:

Job & Training Opportunity: BEST Hospitality Training is currently accepting participants for its job seeker program.
Job & Training Opportunity: The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is looking for a Program Tech-to-Market Administrator. To learn more about this position and others click here .