Walking into the sprawling Eckerd Connects center in Clearwater, Florida, a jobseeker might never expect the origins of the career training provider were much more rustic. Sixty years prior, the organization began with red canvas tents dotting wilderness campgrounds, where they ran programs to help troubled youth.
“It was to take them from the distractions, connect them to touching the ground, breaking them down to build them up,” says Michael Smith, president and CEO of Eckerd Connects. “It was some of the earliest forms of trauma-informed care before we had a name for it.”
Eventually the organization shifted toward community work in the 1980s, then toward careers in 2020. It now runs both Job Corps campuses for young adults and American Job Centers, one-stop shops for jobseekers authorized by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, across 14 states and the District of Columbia. Drawing on its history, the nonprofit goes beyond job placement to help jobseekers with a multitude of challenges, including food insecurity and unreliable childcare.
“We’re not a temp agency; it’s looking at who you are, what your goals are, your passions,” Smith says. “I’ve heard from someone, ‘I just lost my apartment.’ OK, we’ll fix it—it’s not a vacuum.”
The Big Idea: It’s a move more job centers across the nation are trying to make. But they face an uphill battle with an uncertain economy, rising use of artificial intelligence, and threats to program funding. The centers also face the perennial challenge of making jobseekers aware of their programs in the first place.
“I would say it doesn’t get enough attention and it’s part of the system that too often gets overlooked,” says Maria Flynn, president and CEO of Jobs for the Future. “But for millions of people, these centers are the first line of access when it comes to the market.”
And centers, hopeful to weather that perfect storm of economic and labor factors, find themselves once again pivoting.
The Future of Career Centers
Career centers, while typically conjuring up images of flickering lights, dated computers, and a scant crew of employees, have shifted in recent years to cast a wide net of benefits.
“We know that when workforce programs provide these supportive services—like childcare, transportation, things we know typically prevent them from finishing, or even finding, training programs—that brings much better outcomes for workers,” says Veronica Goodman, senior director for workforce development policy at the Center for American Progress.
While there are a number of centers, including Eckerd Connects, doing just that, Goodman says there is a lag, with many largely focused on the singular mission of job placement.
“The current system is not really set up to be responsive to what could be potential disruption,” she says. “I think the way we’ve been thinking about how to adapt the system only focuses on the career system, which brings to mind the clunky computers and much more elementary kind of things.”
Meeting the often interconnected needs of jobseekers is becoming more important than ever, as many programs see strains, including cuts to food assistance programs and rising costs of childcare.
“The needs have increased and I think there’s a greater need to access different services,” says John Casella, chief growth officer at JobWorks, a national nonprofit workforce services provider. “Workforce centers are seeing customers who are coming in that go beyond a job search. You have to solve multiple needs in order to help them in securing employment.”
Building on Shaky Ground
Solving those needs often requires time, funding, and resources. Many workforce nonprofits, including Eckerd Connects and JobWorks, receive the bulk of their funding through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, better known as WIOA. Under the U.S. Department of Labor, it serves as the nation’s primary workforce development system, including services for adult and dislocated workers and Job Corps, which is the nation’s largest provider of residential career training programs for young adults.
That funding is in question, however. The Trump administration has twice proposed budgets that would have eliminated Job Corps and slashed other WIOA funds. Congress ultimately preserved most of the funding for fiscal year 2026, but House Republicans have proposed a 27% cut to the Labor Department’s budget for 2027, including steep cuts to Job Corps and two of the major retraining and job placement programs under WIOA. Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep funding level through mid-December, and it’s unclear if the Senate, which fought cuts to WIOA last budget cycle, will ultimately go along with the House. Midterm elections are sure to complicate the picture.
Flynn and some other experts believe the programs are not ultimately in jeopardy, but some are more concerned.
“Workforce issues, community colleges, a lot of these issues have been traditionally bipartisan; however, some of these programs are under threat,” Goodman says. “I’m more in the camp where there’s uncertainty. I think the proposed cuts are a signal of where the priorities are: You never know what could happen.”
Some industry players are taking on the funding onus themselves. Goodman points to emerging labor-management training partnerships, in which unions—such as those in the healthcare industry—team up with employers to pay into a training fund. That fund can then have more resources, expanding career navigation opportunities.
States are also getting creative, using WIOA funds set aside for governors’ priorities or applying for waivers to get more flexibility in the programs they offer for jobseekers with federal workforce dollars. An analysis earlier this month from Jobs for the Future found a majority of those waivers are from centers seeking to connect with students still in school, along with investing in incumbent worker training and reimbursement for on-the-job training.
“What we benefit from in this moment is a more robust and intentional conversation about full-scale reform,” JFF’s Flynn says. “Instead of being able to move forward on a reform strategy, we’re in a bit of a stalemate in the near-term approach. And I’m interested to see what the catalyst will be to getting to some reforms.”
Some experts believe that catalyst is the continued rise and usage of artificial intelligence.
“A lot of policymakers feel the dignity of work is on a lot of the public’s mind because there’s this rising anxiety on AI and what job opportunities will be available to workers, to their children,” Goodman says. “There’s uncertainty on the economy in the future, and it’s driving this need for new ideas.”
Responding to AI
Career centers have been expanding their digital footprint over the last several years, moving what used to be seen as in-person-only services to become more accessible online.
“You are starting to see a higher level of tech adoption, and some of our work is making access much easier so they don’t have to come into a center two, three, four times,” Casella says. “That really cuts down on the transportation issues and other barriers we see. We’re certainly seeing more of that investment.”
Beyond investing in more general technology, the centers have begun to incorporate AI, in part to help jobseekers prepare for an economy that will likely require skills with that technology.
Centers are also using it to increase efficiency within their own walls. Casella says even centers that were initially hesitant are “at minimum” exploring how to use AI to elevate their services. JobWorks is making investments in AI resume tools, mock AI interview offerings, and AI literacy programs, and it is interested in how AI can optimize workflow and staff efficiency.
“If you look at the types of programs offered throughout workforce centers, you’re starting to see them more geared around technology skills,” Casella says. “With the AI boom, there’s such a role in the workforce development ecosystem for career centers.”
Goodman also points to states as a whole working to incorporate more AI readiness into their job programs. New Jersey, for example, adapted its careers portal to include AI-powered digital tools that can help workers find jobs. Maryland and New York are both rethinking their systems to see how AI and career readiness fit together. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, proposed a National Workforce Transition Fund that would boost training for workers affected by the rise of AI.
The AI boom could increase career centers’ overall value proposition, showcasing the need they fill at a time when more of the workforce requires help reskilling.
“I do think many of us in the field are hopeful the AI transformation, and speed of it, will be the catalyst we’re seeking to drive real reform around the workforce,” Flynn says. “A lot of these questions have been asked for some time and AI is making all of it more urgent.”
Job centers, such as those run by JobWorks and Eckerd Connects, are at the ready.
“I am hopeful it becomes a game changer, not a game ender,” Smith says. “But I need to make sure our folks are ready for it. Not be victimized, but empowered. Every 50 years you have people saying, ‘This is going to destroy us’ and it didn’t. I’m going to believe this is a moment we can leverage.”