Service and Conservation Corps Prepare Young People for Careers

For decades, ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion corps have con­nect­ed young peo­ple to qual­i­ty careers while help­ing vital indus­tries fill crit­i­cal work­force gaps. These pro­grams equip young peo­ple with hands-on train­ing and valu­able skills, cre­at­ing path­ways to well-pay­ing jobs. Two recent, data-based resources from the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion and Jobs for the Future exam­ine the impor­tant role corps pro­grams can play in train­ing and con­nect­ing young peo­ple to life­long careers.

Fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the briefs dis­cuss impor­tant con­nec­tions between corps pro­grams and the labor mar­ket as well as rec­om­mend­ed strate­gies and best prac­tices for strength­en­ing this relationship.

“Corps pro­grams are an often unrec­og­nized resource for train­ing young peo­ple to enter the labor mar­ket,” said Rani­ta Jain, a senior asso­ciate at the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“The find­ings and analy­sis with­in these new resources demon­strate the val­ue of corps pro­grams and how they can empow­er the next gen­er­a­tion of young workers.”

From Corps Ser­vice to Life­long Careers

The Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion brief ​“Corps to Careers: Expand­ing Career Oppor­tu­ni­ties for Young Adults Involved in Ser­vice and Con­ser­va­tion Pro­grams” high­lights data on jobs con­nect­ed to ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion corps pro­grams. Key find­ings include:

• Over 12 mil­lion work­ers are cur­rent­ly employed across 81 dif­fer­ent occu­pa­tions relat­ed to ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion corps.
• Com­mon corps-relat­ed fields include con­struc­tion, ener­gy, land man­age­ment and dis­as­ter response.
• Corps-relat­ed jobs pay a medi­an hourly wage of almost $30, sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than the medi­an hourly wage for all occu­pa­tions ($23.23).
• These occu­pa­tions require less for­mal edu­ca­tion, with half of all work­ers hold­ing a high school diplo­ma or less.
• Near­ly 92% of all work­ers in corps-relat­ed occu­pa­tions are male, over 65% of all work­ers are white and less than 10% are under the age of 24.

Corps to Careers con­cludes that these data will be valu­able to corps lead­ers, state ser­vice com­mis­sions and pol­i­cy­mak­ers as they con­sid­er whether to sup­port ser­vice-to-career pathways.

Strength­en­ing Ser­vice-to-Career Pathways

“Strength­en­ing Ser­vice-to-Career Path­ways: Ampli­fy­ing Suc­cess­ful Prac­tices from the Corps Net­work,” from Jobs for the Future, looks at the cur­rent field of mem­bers of The Corps Net­work, which con­nects more than 150 ser­vice and con­ser­va­tion corps pro­grams across the Unit­ed States.

The brief iden­ti­fied four key findings:

1. Pro­grams with­in The Corps Net­work pro­vide robust train­ing and wrap­around ser­vices for young peo­ple. These sup­ports focus on occu­pa­tion­al train­ing, per­son­al growth, work­force readi­ness, civic engage­ment and education.
2. Corps pro­gram par­tic­i­pants receive expe­ri­ence, train­ing and cre­den­tials that sup­port progress along sev­er­al career path­ways. These fields include nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment, water man­age­ment, clean ener­gy and dis­as­ter response and preparedness.
3. Many corps pro­grams work with employ­ers to align train­ing with the evolv­ing needs of indus­tries, but there’s room for improve­ment. While 68% of Corps Net­work mem­ber pro­grams eval­u­ate their cur­ric­u­la to ensure they meet the needs of busi­ness­es, only 32% could iden­ti­fy spe­cif­ic occu­pa­tions that they train par­tic­i­pants for.
4. Corps pro­grams lead young peo­ple to appren­tice­ships and oth­er paid train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, but con­nec­tions to reg­is­tered appren­tice­ships are lim­it­ed. Reg­is­tered appren­tice­ships are high-qual­i­ty career path­ways that have been approved by the state or fed­er­al government.

“We in the corps com­mu­ni­ty have seen first­hand how these pro­grams can be life-chang­ing,” said Mary Ellen Sprenkel, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Corps Net­work. ​“A term of ser­vice in a corps is an invalu­able step­ping stone to a reward­ing career, par­tic­u­lar­ly for young peo­ple who face bar­ri­ers to edu­ca­tion or the work­force. We are excit­ed that the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion and Jobs for the Future have helped illu­mi­nate the impact corps can have on the work­force and young workers.”

Learn more about Casey’s invest­ments in career path­ways for young people