Nevadaworks: Connecting Data to Decisions Across a Large and Diverse Workforce Region
Nevadaworks serves Northern and Central Nevada, one of the most geographically largest and diverse workforce regions in the country. To operate effectively across this landscape, Nevadaworks has embedded labor market information (LMI) into the core of its service delivery model. Rather than existing as a standalone product, data is integrated into two primary system components: Industry Sector Partnerships, which convene employers to define workforce needs, and Regional Career Navigators, who translate those needs into actionable guidance for job seekers.
Grounding Career Navigation in Local Economic Reality
One actional product developed by Nevadaworks is its regional economic profiles. These profiles integrate traditional labor market indicators, such as employment levels, growth trends, and projections, with real-time job postings and cost of living–adjusted wage data. Together, they form the foundation for career and education pathway maps, illustrating how individuals can advance from entry-level roles to higher-wage occupations, with clear connections to required skills, credentials, and training programs along the way
By embedding local wage data and cost of living benchmarks directly into these tools, Nevadaworks ensures that users seeking career guidance understand economic sustainability, and not just job availability.
Regional Career Navigators use these tools in one-on-one engagement with job seekers, helping individuals answer four critical questions:
- What jobs are available locally?
- What do they pay relative to cost of living?
- What skills and credentials are required?
- What is a realistic next step?
This approach is particularly critical in rural areas, where workers have fewer alternatives when training investments do not lead to employment. Aligning guidance with verified local demand reduces risk for individuals and improves the effectiveness of public workforce investments.
Mapping the Gap Between Training Supply and Employer Demand
To better align education and workforce systems, Nevadaworks developed sector-based supply and demand models using data from the Nevada P-20 Workforce Research Data System (NPWR). Central to this effort is a CIP–SOC–NAICS crosswalk, enabling direct comparisons between:
- Education program outputs (CIP),
- Occupational demand (SOC), and
- Industry trends (NAICS).
This integrated view allows Nevadaworks to identify where training pipelines are overproducing relative to demand, or employer needs are outpacing available talent. For example, as Lithium Americas works to develop mining operations in the region, Nevadaworks can use these models to distinguish between the immediate demand for construction and skilled trades workers needed to build out the site and the longer-term, smaller pool of full-time operational roles, ensuring training investments are calibrated to actual hiring timeline rather than headline projections. These insights have directly informed the reallocation of training investments toward high-demand sectors.
Importantly, Nevadaworks treats discrepancies between employer feedback and data as opportunities for refinement. When misalignment occurs, the team re-examines assumptions, data sources, and methodologies – ensuring that analysis remains both empirically grounded and practically relevant.
Making Data Actionable for Multiple Users
Nevadaworks is also advancing a unified data infrastructure for users through the development of interactive dashboards that integrate:
- Program-level performance metrics,
- Short-term talent pipeline data,
- Labor market information, and
- Education and training outputs.
With filters by region and industry, these tools support multiple users, including employers assessing hiring conditions, workforce staff managing program performance, and regional partners targeting investments. Also, in rural regions, where data fragmentation is common, this shared platform improves coordination, transparency, and collective decision-making.
Nevadaworks’ approach to data is built on practices designed to improve over time. Each refinement, whether to a crosswalk, a dashboard, or an employer relationship, strengthens the system’s ability to direct resources where they are most needed.
Key Insights and Lessons for Workforce Boards
- Multi-dimensional occupational analysis improves decision-making: Evaluating occupations across growth, volume, wages, and credential requirements provides a more complete picture of demand and long-term opportunity. This enables:
- Employers to articulate demand more clearly;
- Educators to improve alignment of program offerings;
- Workforce staff to guide job seekers more effectively and;
- Job seekers to understand which opportunities are realistically within reach and what steps are required to get there.
- Cost of living adjustments are essential for meaningful guidance: Wage data alone can be misleading. Incorporating cost-of-living ensures that career recommendations reflect real economic viability, particularly in rural communities.
- Crosswalks unlock system alignment: Linking CIP, SOC, and NAICS codes enables precise comparisons between training supply and labor market demand, turning fragmented data into actionable intelligence for system-level decision-making.
Learn more about Nevadaworks here.