Building Local Skills Marketplaces: A Guide for Local Communities

Communities across the country are rethinking how people connect to work and opportunity. Employers are struggling to find the talent they need, workers are seeking clearer pathways to economic mobility, and traditional hiring and workforce systems are no longer keeping pace with rapidly changing skill needs and technologies.

Skills-based approaches offer a path forward. By focusing on the skills people have, not just degrees or job titles, communities can build more responsive, inclusive, and effective labor markets. While national momentum around skills-based hiring and learning continues to grow, many local leaders are still grappling with how to translate these ideas into coordinated action on the ground.

Building Local Skills Marketplaces is a practical guide for communities working to better align employers, workers, educators, and workforce partners around shared talent and economic goals. Grounded in interviews with practitioners and examples from across the country, the resource explores how local coordination, trusted partnerships, and shared data infrastructure can help communities create workforce systems that work better for everyone.

Inside this resource you will find:

• A framework for how national skills infrastructure and local skills marketplaces work together
• Practical guidance for employers, educators, government, and community-based organizations on the role each plays in building a thriving local skills marketplace
• Lessons learned from communities that are making measurable progress
• Action-oriented tools and resources to support implementation 

Our goal is simple: to help every community build a skills marketplace that works for employers, for workers, and for your local economy.