Institute For The Future

Cities make the future. They’re where people from all walks of life and cultures live, work, and play in close quarters. This intersection of diverse people, ideas, and ways of living creates and remakes culture with astounding speed.

San Francisco has a long history of charging forward, rebuilding and reinventing itself. From the gold rush to the sixties counterculture to the Silicon Valley tech revolution, the City and the Bay Area have led social movements and pioneered new technologies that shape the future. The city’s workforce development ecosystem—workers, employers, labor activists, and community organizations, along with everyone and everything else that impacts people’s livelihoods—has constantly adapted to booms, busts, and innovations.

Today, the City and its economy are once again experiencing profound transformation. The rise of new technologies and platforms are challenging traditional notions of work and what workers need. Platforms like Uber and Elance-oDesk are unbundling jobs into tasks and multiple income streams. And activists are pioneering new ways to ensure that workers have access to the resources they need in the face of unprecedented inequality.

But this is just the beginning. Over the next ten years, change will be even more rapid and dramatic, opening up a whole new spectrum of possibilities even as it renders many traditional workforce development approaches ineffective. From this possibility space, we have the opportunity to create the workforce development ecosystem we want—but only if we work together now.

This map is your guide to anticipating and shaping the San Francisco workforce development ecosystem of the next decade. It outlines the major technology-based forces likely to disrupt employment and highlights opportunities we can seize today to ensure equity, expand job readiness, and catalyze collaboration among stakeholders.