Social Capital for Workforce Development in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties

NOVAworks has not been able to increase the long-term career mobility of enough
vulnerable workers in its area of service. We identified two main underlying reasons for this
challenge. Firstly, NOVAworks has faced difficulty in registering vulnerable workers as
customers, due to a lack of awareness of NOVAworks’s programs, a lack of trust in a successful
outcome, and resource barriers to participating in a workforce development program. Secondly,
the workforce development system focuses on unemployment, rather than underemployment and
working poverty, which require different lenses through which to operate.