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Jobs change lives. We can’t afford not to lead.

North Carolina is facing a talent crisis, which is a long-range concern that requires leadership to increase the quality and quantity of talent and align it with industry growth.

In response to these urgent workforce needs, the NC Chamber Foundation launched the business-driven Institute for Workforce Competitiveness in March 2022.

The strength of the NC Chamber Foundation is its access to the very employers facing workforce challenges every day. With the formation of the Institute for Workforce Competitiveness, the NC Chamber Foundation is working to increase the labor force participation rate in the state of North Carolina by:

Removing barriers to entering the state's workforce through policy innovations and solutions.

With evidence-based research and a statewide perspective, the Foundation is uniquely positioned to understand and incorporate North Carolina’s diverse population, economy, and geography, and engage a wide range of key partners to remove barriers to employment such as child care, housing, labor sourcing, and labor mobility.

Closing the job supply-and-demand gap by scaling and aligning proven employer, community, and industry-based efforts. 

North Carolina will benefit from consistent, wide ranging engagement and partnership between the education and business communities to address the state’s long-term labor constraints. To activate this employer leadership, the Foundation will engage in community-based efforts such as the NC Health Talent Alliance, the U.S. Chamber’s Talent Pipeline Management® program, and education-based efforts with our state’s education partners and systems.

Learn More: NC Health Talent Alliance

Learn More: Talent Pipeline Management

Addressing acute worker shortages by elevating proven employer and community-based efforts and increasing their impact.

The Foundation will research and recommend highly successful employer collaboratives, work-based learning, and employability skill building programs for statewide implementation. It will also explore additional research on new innovations, including skills savings accounts, student loan repayment, and continuing education programs that can further support the state’s educational attainment goals, as measured by myFutureNC.


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“When you couple the immediate needs of employers and long-term projections for the state’s workforce, we simply cannot afford to leave anyone on the sidelines.”

Meredith Archie, President, NC Chamber Foundation