Creating Economic Prosperity for
Our Residents & Businesses

HIRE Charlotte: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Workforce Development

What It’s About

In short, HIRE Charlotte is about creating and filling good jobs. It is a shared vision and high-level framework that will serve as a road map for leading Charlotte’s employment ecosystem in building upward mobility and economic growth for all. HIRE Charlotte’s work is focused on coordinating the targeted recruitment and support of new and expanding companies with the development, training, and placement of homegrown, remote, and incoming talent. In addition, this initiative is advancing the closer coordination of Charlotte’s transportation, affordable housing, and neighborhood development efforts.

Who Is Involved

HIRE Charlotte’s vision and framework are being created by a volunteer task force comprised of people and organizations across Charlotte’s employment ecosystem. It is made up of major regional employers in the public and private sectors, talent training and development organizations, and business expansion and recruitment agencies, including the City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, and the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance. All of these organizations have come together to share, rethink, and develop a collective vision and shared pathways to build sustainable growth and prosperity for our entire community.

Project Goals

HIRE CHARLOTTE'S EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Develop a vision and framework – a North Star for the entire workforce ecosystem on how to create and fill good jobs today and tomorrow. The framework will include shared goals (key performance indicators) and specific action steps.
To inform and help direct ARPA decision-making – how the funds should be used.

A Shared Vision

The goal of this initiative is to immediately increase Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s employment ecosystem’s impact on creating and filling good jobs that drive economic prosperity for all residents and businesses. We want to create a direct pipeline between educational workforce development resources for job seekers with skills that meet the needs of the business ecosystem.

A Shared Opportunity

For residents, it includes the opportunity for everyone who wants to work to earn a good wage, advance in a career, and achieve the American Dream.

For businesses, it includes the opportunity to earn a profit, grow enterprise value, and, in doing so, ensure the well-being of their employees. HIRE Charlotte is about enabling all of this — connecting all we do around employment.

READ THE BACKGROUND RESEARCH AND REPORTS

A Strategy for Growth

HIRE Charlotte is a strategic jobs framework, a working model that will inspire and unite the employment ecosystem around a shared vision, related goals, and an intentional pathway.

Developing this shared framework will elevate the work and success of all ecosystem partners in not only creating and filling jobs, but also in increasing upward mobility.

A New Direction

This is a North Star and navigational map for the entire employment ecosystem.

This includes broad direction on how to align industry cluster development, business recruitment, workforce training and development, education, mobility infrastructure, affordable housing, and employers in ways that create and fill more good jobs and advance a more holistic view of career development and support.

A Vital
Evolution

The jobs strategy framework is not a plan or directive on how an organization within the ecosystem should operate.

This is a blueprint for how the overall ecosystem should evolve to deliver an even greater positive impact for Charlotte’s residents and employers.

Facing Charlotte’s Future

Central Piedmont Community College Training Programs

Doing More Together

Charlotte consistently leads peer cities in wage growth and job creation. While ecosystem partners realize their collective success, there is also an increasing realization that there’s much more to accomplish.

Owning the Challenge

Charlotte still ranks very low when it comes to economic mobility. As the employment ecosystem looks to the immediate and long-term future, it must become even more intentional in addressing major challenges and opportunities.