People

This past year has exacerbated long-standing inequities – but it’s also driven our community to go all in on driving greater educational attainment and career development for San Antonians.

This week, SA Works kicks off its sixth annual community-wide Job Shadow Day. Last year, the SA Works team decided to take its school-to-career programs virtual until students and employers can safely gather once again. With this year’s virtual Job Shadow format, SA Works has leveraged the opportunity to reach more students than ever before. This week’s Job Shadow is more than doubling the number of middle and high school students engaged in the day-long career exploration in years past. SA Works will be delivering employer-created videos to over 12,000 students across nearly 10 school districts. Job Shadows are critical career exploration activities that support youth’s awareness of the types of jobs, workforce expectations, and career journeys available among our regional employers.

But taking these programs virtual has had its own set of challenges. When the pandemic sent students home to learn from a distance, many of San Antonio’s youth were left in the dark. Our community’s digital divide has become another hurdle to connecting students to learning and career opportunities.
Students without internet access struggle to obtain the education and career resources available to them online, while adult jobseekers work to navigate virtual environments like Zoom interviews and virtual job fairs. Ensuring San Antonio youth and job seekers can connect to these career opportunities is critical as we continue to recover from the pandemic.

We invite you to join us for the Job Shadow kick-off event, happening March 3 at 10:00 a.m. CT. We’re looking forward to sharing more about this year’s virtual program and how these career exploration opportunities help strengthen San Antonio’s future workforce.