The Year in Review, A Look Ahead

A reflection of the Heldrich Center's research and public service in 2020, plus a sneak at what's coming up in early 2021.

To our friends, colleagues, and collaborators:

I hope you and your family are healthy and well. On behalf of the entire Heldrich Center faculty and staff, I want to wish you a relaxing holiday season and a brighter new year. May 2021 be safer, more just, and more economically prosperous for those who are suffering during this most difficult era.

The faculty and staff of the Heldrich Center met this past year’s enormous challenges by recommitting ourselves to improving lives and livelihoods through our research and public service. Our talented and dedicated team engaged in new projects that serve job seekers, businesses, and policymakers at the national, state, and local levels. Some of the notable work during 2020 and previews of 2021 include the following:

  • On behalf of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, the Heldrich Center surveyed more than 3,000 New Jersey business and nonprofit leaders to assess the impact of COVID-19 and explore how those businesses and organizations could safely re-open and manage during the pandemic. The results from a second business survey conducted in November will be released soon.
  • A new Work Trends national survey examining Americans’ views on the impact of the pandemic on them and what they expect from government will be released in January.
  • In collaboration with the New Jersey Department of Labor and the New Jersey Office of Innovation, the Heldrich Center designed and launched the New Jersey Career Network, which improves digital services for New Jersey job seekers. The center has also built a complementary New Jersey Career Network Job Seeker Community as well as a Coaching Community of Practice with professional and volunteer career coaches across New Jersey. Together, these services expand and improve capacity to meet the unprecedented levels of job seekers’ needs during the pandemic-driven recession.
  • The center’s New Jersey Education to Earnings Data System (NJEEDS) helped develop the New Jersey Department of Education’s successful grant proposals for $3.25 million in federal funding. The NJEEDS report, Where Students Go: Postsecondary Student Migration In and Out of New Jersey, was released in August 2020. The NJEEDS team organized an Eastern States Longitudinal Data Collaborative, where several states across New England and the mid-Atlantic will share data on critical research and policy issues.
  • The center’s Suddenly Virtual project, launched in March 2020, provided guidance — through 18 products — to workforce professionals who abruptly switched to virtual operations as a result of the pandemic. Strategically Virtual — a follow-up initiative — has also been launched.
  • The Heldrich Center partnered with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and WorkingNation on the Leading Workforce Resurgence online series. These reports, which I co-edit, and are part of the Atlanta Fed’s Workforce Currents series, feature strategies for responding to the economic recession on businesses, higher education institutions, workers, job seekers, and employers, including several reports by Heldrich Center researchers. Professor Bill Rodgers, Chief Economist at the Heldrich Center, and I are also serving as non-resident visiting scholars with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  • The center is collaborating with the New Jersey Future of Work Taskforce, which developed policy proposals for expanding education and training and for ensuring the rights and benefits of the state’s most vulnerable workers. The Taskforce report will be released in early 2021.
  • The center is working with the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers to examine how businesses can create new business models and promising strategies to manage during the pandemic. The center will prepare training modules to help small businesses respond to the public health and economic impacts of the pandemic.

I am deeply appreciative of the work of my colleagues at the center, our National Advisory Board, and our partners in state and local government and nonprofits. I am also grateful for the generous financial contributions the center receives from private firms, foundations, and individuals. I welcome suggestions for how the center can further contribute to solving the difficult problems confronting our nation and especially those who are most disadvantaged. Please forward any suggestions to hcwd@ejb.rutgers.edu.

All best wishes,

Carl Van Horn, Ph.D.
Director and Distinguished Professor
John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development
Rutgers University