New Strategies for Fishing: Coaching for Economic Mobility in the 21st Century
Published September 2020 by Elisabeth D. Babcock, MCRP, PhD
Key Points
- The twin forces of increased automation and the coronavirus pandemic are rapidly eliminating family-sustaining jobs in key sectors that have traditionally provided upward mobility for low-wage workers.
- These forces are also creating increased labor market demand for the 21st-century skills (e.g., high-level strategic thinking and interpersonal skills) most difficult to automate and challenging for low-wage workers to deploy.
- To maintain robust pathways to the middle class for low-wage workers and sufficient numbers of well-qualified workers to meet labor market demand, we need to create new pathways for low-wage workers that include training in 21st-century skills. But such skills are not best taught through traditional one-size-fits-all job-training or job-search programs.
- This report provides evidence from Economic Mobility Pathways’ Mobility Mentoring® Program on how shifting from such traditional models to more individualized and holistic coaching incorporating 21st-century skills can create breakthrough gains for low-wage workers in education, employment, earnings, debt reduction, savings, wellness, and family stability.