D.C. Deputy Secretary for Education Paul Kihn said the creation of a job search board is helping make sure that area residents are prepared for shifts in the rapidly changing job market.
At a meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments board of directors, Kihn said Talent Capital AI was created with “displaced federal workers front and center,” and that it was a response to President Donald Trump’s administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, that called for the mass layoffs of government workers.
Kihn said the efforts made to assist displaced federal workers in finding work could be applied to the D.C. area’s future employment outlook.
“It wasn’t lost on anyone … that what we’re learning about how to handle displaced workers and disruptions to the labor market will be very, very important for us all as we look to the next two or three years of AI enablement in our economy,” he said.
Will Lopez, president of the software company BuildWithin, said since the launch of Talent Capital, there have been over 100,000 unique users on the site.
“Currently, there’s about 83,000 unique active users on Talent Capital right now that are matching to over 65,000 job listings,” he said. “Now, we’re seeing an uptick in the conversations being around training opportunities and upscaling opportunities, specifically around project management, leadership and AI foundational skills as well.”
According to Lopez’s presentation to the board members, 42% of users are from Virginia, nearly 40% are from Maryland and just over 16% are from the District of Columbia.
As for what kind of industries are looking to hire, Lopez said health care leads the list, with 15,814 positions open; followed by engineering, with 6,646 positions being advertised on the site.
“This is specifically around cybersecurity,” Lopez said.
He also said that Talent Capital is able to provide a seamless process for applicants to be linked to skills training to prepare them for jobs in new careers.
“Starting in May, we are going to create virtual and asynchronous training around AI foundational skills, free of charge for all constituents across the region,” Lopez said.
One thing that’s lacking currently is the ability to determine how matches made on Talent Capital result in hires for applicants. That’s because Talent Capital doesn’t own the job postings. So once the applicants leave the Talent Capital website to apply, they can’t be tracked any further.
The hope, Lopez said, is that employers will start to use Talent Capital as their direct job posting site and then measure the success of jobs posted to matches that resulted in hires.
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