2023: MILESTONES AND ACHIEVEMENTS
In April, our IT program passed the three-year mark; since inception, we’ve enrolled 370 learners, matriculated 290 graduates, and launched 174 new careers. It’s a tribute to the passion, excellence, and hard work of our team as well as the caliber of learners we’re able to recruit. The impact on lives is substantial. The average ActivateWork graduate experiences a 92% increase in earnings – from $26,000 to $51,000 annually – representing a total annual earnings power of $10 million.

In 2023, we launched our fourth registered apprenticeship – IT Support. Combined with our other apprenticeships in Cybersecurity, Software Development, and DevOps, we are one of the leading IT apprenticeship intermediaries in Colorado. Thank you to our employer partners for pioneering the win-win of IT apprenticeship: Alethia, Bank of America, The Governor’s Office of Information Technology, Colorado Community College System, Credit Union of Colorado, Fortify IT, Leprino, Ping Identity, and Pinnacle Healthcare.

Our fifteen apprentices earned an average of $55,000 while completing 12 months of training with an employer partner. Upon completing their apprenticeship, they earned a nationally recognized credential, and their salary increased to $68,000 on average. The apprenticeships benefited employers by facilitating customized, evergreen training programs they can continue to use to build their talent pipelines.
Read about one of our apprentices, Oscar Santos, below.

LOOKING INWARD
2023 was also a year of internal process improvement for us. To lay a strong foundation for ActivateWork’s scaling plans, we began the year with a deep review of our values: love, hope, justice, excellence, and agility. We pushed to enhance and deepen the manifestation of our values through each function and department to better serve all our stakeholders.

Led by our President, Kathryn Harris, we also began a two-year effort to clarify, categorize, and measure all systems and processes to improve the experience of our learners, employer partners, and team members. 

LOOKING OUTWARD
Not simply a training and employment program, ActivateWork is increasingly becoming a high-impact intermediary in the education-to-employment ecosystem. We knit together government programs, K12 and higher ed institutions, training providers, employers, and learners in an outcomes-oriented continuum of professional and economic mobility. In December, we launched our Tech Talent Partnership fueled by twenty major IT employers, including Western Union, Trimble, and Bank of America. Together, we will build a seamless workforce development program that will meet industry’s pain points and create opportunity and prosperity.

Our sphere of influence is large and continues to grow – we’re currently affecting change for Colorado’s communities and economy by: 

• • Working to influence public policy to develop a more skilled and inclusive workforce through initiatives at local and state levels.
  • Partnering with the Colorado Equity and Economic Mobility Initiative to encourage more accountability in government investment in evidence-based programs.
  • Building longitudinal data systems to understand the long-term impact of our interventions with partners at Gary Community Ventures and the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab at the University of Denver.
  • Piloting a program for the City and County of Denver’s Prosperity Fund to expand educational funding for ActivateWork’s young Denver residents.
  • Serving on Colorado’s Elevate Quantum Steering Committee to position Colorado as a Regional Technology and Innovation Hub.

LOOKING AHEAD
The tech industry witnessed a dramatic shift in employment trends from 2020-2023. The acceleration of remote work and cloud-based applications during and post-COVID brought a frenzied pace to tech hiring in 2021 and 2022, but many companies realized they’d over-hired. 2023 was a year of industry layoffs, with more than 168,000 jobs cut. The IT hiring rollercoaster has slowed the rate of employment for our 2023 grads; to combat that, we’re working with new Managed Services Providers and other new employers to pick up the slack. And although many of our employer partners announced hiring freezes, hiring is expected to accelerate in the first half of 2024.

While the tech industry may be undergoing a period of unrest, the overall outlook for technology outpacing other industries is stronger than ever – the IT industry is expected to grow at twice the rate of the overall economy.

At ActivateWork, we’re following some critical numbers about the industry.  For example, there are 700,000 unfilled cyber jobs in the US, with only 1% of Fortune 100 companies reporting sufficient in-house cyber talent. 82% of middle-skill jobs now require digital skills. And, in Colorado alone, there are some 22,000 open cyber jobs and 10,000 open IT jobs.

We believe that IT represents a rare win-win-win in workforce development, demonstrating all the supply-demand characteristics that predict a strong ecosystem for years to come. With a perpetual IT talent shortage, a lack of new talent entering the industry, declining STEM college enrollments, and private sector wages double the average, we believe there is no surer or shorter pathway to economic prosperity than IT careers.

We are excited to forge the change.