On August 28, the Clean Energy Workforce Roundtable convened at the Heinz 57 Center to examine how data can be used to improve access to family-sustaining careers. The meeting placed particular focus on the Workforce Vitality Index, a tool in development to better understand workforce barriers, and a sneak peak of the Future Energy Career Maps.
Why the Workforce Vitality Index Matters
Across Southwestern Pennsylvania, barriers such as transportation gaps, caregiving responsibilities, financial strain and limited access to resources continue to prevent many residents from pursuing training or advancing into family-sustaining careers. These challenges are well known to employers, workforce boards and community organizations, but until now, the region lacked a structured, shared way to track them.
The Workforce Vitality Index, developed in partnership with Roundtable members, is being created to fill that gap. By organizing workforce conditions into four pillars — transportation, family care burden, financial burden, and access burden — the Index makes visible the fundamental hurdles that consistently hold workers back. It provides a common framework so that different sectors can speak the same language when identifying problems and shaping solutions.
How the Workforce Vitality Index Works
The Index allows users to filter data by county, workforce development board area or subsector. This means stakeholders can drill down into local realities – for example, comparing rates of households without vehicles in a given county, identifying where childcare needs are most acute or exploring how digital access varies across the region. Users can toggle between indicators within each pillar, such as commute times, early childhood enrollment, renter cost burdens or disability employment rates, and see how those conditions compare to regional benchmarks.
The Index, with its interactive features, is designed to guide decision-making for workforce boards, training providers and policymakers. By making barriers measurable and comparable, the Index can help direct funding, target programs and strengthen advocacy for the supports that job seekers need most.
Crucially, the Index is a living tool. It will be updated regularly and refined over time, with Roundtable members continuing to shape which data sources and indicators best reflect conditions on the ground. This will ensure that the Index is both technically sound as well as grounded in practitioner expertise and community realities.
Panel Insights: Data Meets Practice
To dive into how the index could be applied in practice, the Roundtable featured a panel moderated by John Ukenye, senior director of policy and strategic initiatives at Sustainable Pittsburgh. Panelists included:
- Nick Cotter – Allegheny County Department of Human Services
- Ami Gatts – Southwest Corner Workforce Development Board
- Lance Harrell – Master Builders Association of Western Pennsylvania
- Coleman Rogers – U.S. Department of Energy Fellow
The discussion highlighted how transportation and caregiving challenges often intersect to limit access to opportunity. Panelists also emphasized the importance of data clarity and reliability, ensuring that measures are not only accurate but also usable for decision-making. From a trades perspective, panelists pointed to hurdles such as limited exposure to career opportunities and the difficulty many applicants face with entry exams. The panelists underscored the risk of relying on tools that fail to capture real-world conditions, as they can lead to incomplete or misleading conclusions.
The discussion also focused on what makes workforce data meaningful. Indicators must be reliable, straightforward, and clearly tied to outcomes in order to guide effective action. When measures are overly complex or poorly defined, they obscure patterns and make it harder for practitioners and policymakers to respond. The panel stressed the value of using clear categories, appropriate thresholds, and context so that data is both technically sound and practically useful.
Audience questions rounded out the discussion, asking how the Index could capture labor markets that extend beyond Pennsylvania’s borders, how frequently it should be updated, and how to safeguard its quality if federal data sources change. Participants also asked about the role of nonprofits in outreach and the importance of stable programs that communities can rely on over time.
The panel concluded that the Index should be viewed as a directional tool rather than an endpoint. It can help establish priorities, but its value depends on being paired with aligned policy interventions, strong partnerships and consistent programmatic investments that translate insights into expanded access to family-sustaining careers.
Regional Updates from Partners
The Roundtable also featured updates from Matt Mahoney, planning manager for the city of Pittsburgh, who shared progress on the city’s Comprehensive Plan (Pittsburgh 2050) and upcoming engagement opportunities. DJ Ryan of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) gave an overview of the organization’s Comprehensive Climate Action Plan, developed through the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, and encouraged attendees to provide feedback during public meetings and comment periods.
From Insights to Tools
Participants also previewed the Future Energy Career Maps, a resource that connects users to job descriptions, training programs, career pathways and wage information in construction, electrical and advanced manufacturing. By making opportunities visible and easy to understand, the maps are intended to reduce confusion about available jobs and strengthen coordination among job seekers, educators and employers.
The Road Ahead
The August Roundtable meeting reinforced that Southwestern Pennsylvania has both the opportunity and responsibility to strengthen workforce pathways for its clean energy transition. The Workforce Vitality Index and Future Energy Career Maps are two emerging tools designed to support that effort, but their impact will depend on the continued alignment of data, partnerships and action.
The next Clean Energy Workforce Roundtable will take place on Thursday, November 6, 2025.
Join the Work
The Clean Energy Workforce Roundtable is a platform for collaboration across sectors. It brings together diverse perspectives to identify barriers, share solutions, and build a workforce that reflects the needs and aspirations of communities across our region. If you or your organization would like to participate, please contact John Ukenye at jukenye@sustainablepittsburgh.org to learn more and get involved.