The Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC) aims to expand access to labor market information (LMI) for data-driven decision-making. In 2022, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CREC launched a data-related training and technical assistance program in collaboration with organizations guiding students through high school, college, and career. In 2025, CREC is offering an enhanced program in collaboration with C2ER and the LMI Institute, titled “Mobilizing Data for Talent Development.”
FAQs
What is LMI? Labor Market Information (LMI) is any information about the labor market. The most commonly recognized LMI metrics are regarding employment and wages, but important LMI includes a variety of data points that describe employees, job seekers, jobs, and industries, especially for economic regions.
How is LMI being used? Organizations utilize LMI data to drive decision making in a number of areas. From the economic and workforce development perspective, this may include utilizing LMI data to recruit and retain businesses and talent, provide workforce training, or design business incentives and policies. From the education perspective, this may include utilizing LMI data to design programs, align curriculum with in-demand job roles and skills, and evaluate program efficacy.
What is data-driven decision-making? Data-driven decision-making entails using quality information to support decisions instead of relying on intuition, observation, or guesswork. Information sources can be qualitative or quantitative from employers, students, program participation records, or statistical surveys. It is how the information comes together that ensures its quality.
Who are the participants in the Mobilizing Data program? The organizations participating in the Mobilizing Data for Talent Development program are both public and private education, economic, or workforce development organizations who are working to enhance post-secondary pathways and outcomes in their region. These organizations were selected to participate in the program based on their intent and capacity in building better information systems.
What is CREC’s role? CREC’s role is to provide Technical Assistance (TA) utilizing customized resources and curriculum to facilitate enhanced data-driven competencies.
What is the content of the TA? CREC covers a range of topics including data management, designing a research agenda, accessing/analyzing public data, and building partnerships. Take a look at our 2022-2023 curriculum and SME list for more details.
How does CREC deliver TA? CREC’s TA involves facilitation, advising, connecting, providing resources and information, and capacity-building for sustainable data practices. This includes:
- Subject Matter Experts (SME)-led workshops – Regional, local, state, and academic leaders share best practices and lessons learned, providing insight for participants to move toward their own data-driven goals for equitable programming.
- 1-on-1 tailored learning sessions – These sessions are available for organizations to work on a problem set and focus on their specific needs. Participants meet one-on-one with an SME to work on constructing measurable research questions and designing databases for their specific research projects.
- Resource Bank -This online repository stores templates, checklists, relevant case studies, and best practice models covering a wide range of data management, data sharing, data governance, and data analysis and interpretation topics. These documents serve as points of reference as organizations develop their data practices.
- Case Studies – These cases showcase independent organizations and public offices that make high-quality LMI data accessible to collaborating partners and the general public and support data-informed decision-making for various stakeholders. Case studies are useful tools for participants to understand how other organizations put data tools and strategies into practice with positive results.
- Regional Convenings – These convenings are designed to bring organizations together to collaborate and problem solve on key post-secondary and data issues facing their regions. Participants leave with concrete steps and solutions to move their work forward.