Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership

Project Title: Good Jobs Chicago
Region (applicant-defined)/State(s) or territory served: Cook County, Illinois
Phase (applicant-defined): System Development
Award Amount: $18,548,723
Key Industry / Industries: Healthcare; Manufacturing; Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics; Information Technology
Contact: Patrick Combs, Interim CEO, pcombs@chicookworks.org
Project Narrative (applicant submitted) (PDF)
View Press Release
Summary:
The Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership is a nonprofit organization that operates the largest public workforce system in the country and has placed over 90,000 workers into jobs that support four critical industries to Chicago’s economy. Two healthcare sector partnerships will focus on training workers in Chicago’s healthcare industry and will be led by the non-profit Health & Medicine Policy Research Group. The Cook County Bureau of Economic Development will lead a manufacturing sector partnership focused on placing Chicago workers into quality manufacturing jobs. Olive Harvey College will lead a transportation, distribution, and logistics sector partnership, ensuring a robust workforce that is essential to the region’s and country’s supply chain. P33 – a non-profit founded in 2019 to better connect Chicago technology employers with local stakeholders – will lead an information technology sector partnership to train and place workers in jobs in the local technology industry. The Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership has over 40 letters of commitment from leading employers and has also partnered with the Chicago Workforce Funders Alliance, which engages over 30 major Chicago-based philanthropic funders of workforce development. With ready-to-scale projects in key sectors, the awardee will create sustainable pipelines to good-paying jobs with a focus on communities on Chicago’s South and West sides.

The project narrative included above is what was submitted by the applicants. The final EDA-approved scope of work may differ.