What you need to know: Governor Newsom today released a new economic vision for California’s future with a bold plan, realized locally. The unveiling comes alongside the announcement of more than $245 million in investments to help support workers statewide, including additional investment in LA to bolster the region’s ongoing economic recovery from wildfires.

Los Angeles, California - Governor Newsom today released the new California Jobs First Economic Blueprint, a statewide plan built with input from 13 regional plans to drive sustainable economic growth, innovation, and access to good-paying jobs over the next decade. The Blueprint is paired with $125 million in funding to support new, ready-to-go projects, $15 million for economic development projects for California Native American tribes, $13 million to support the economic recovery and small businesses in the Los Angeles region, and $92 million in funding for new apprenticeship and jobs programs.

California’s economic dominance and success are grown locally, with the contributions of each diverse region of our state. From agriculture to clean energy to film to every industry in between, our Golden State owes its success to the people, communities, and industries that make it work. I am proud of the collaborative work of Californians from every region who developed this statewide Economic Blueprint. California thrives because we work together, despite adversity and even disagreement. It is this collective resilient spirit that will help move Los Angeles forward and help us overcome any challenge that stands in our way. - Governor Gavin Newsom

The California Jobs First Economic Blueprint launch is a bold step toward building an economy that uplifts every worker, every family, and every community. California leads the world in innovation and opportunity, but opportunity should never be reserved for a select few - it must be a reality for all. Shaped by communities, the California Jobs First Economic Blueprint ensures every Californian has the chance to thrive. - First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Funding for economic and workforce development 

Along with the Jobs First Economic Blueprint, the Governor’s announced key investments in the state’s efforts to grow the economy and create job opportunities, including:

$125 million grant solicitation to support new “ready-to-go” projects aligned to the state’s strategic sectors, ensuring that every region across California continues to play a critical role in the sustainable growth of the world’s fifth-largest economy. 

$15 million grant solicitation for economic planning, pre-development, and implementation projects for California Native American tribes. 

$52 million for new apprenticeships through the Apprenticeship Innovation Fund with a focus on high-demand sectors such as finance, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare.

$16 million for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship funding for young people ages 16-24 through the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship (COYA) grant program. This funding supports pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs that provide hands-on, real-world job training for young people who are often neither working nor in school.

$24.1 million in High Road Training Partnership funds to 10 projects statewide to train people for jobs to meet California’s most urgent healthcare needs, with a focus on behavioral health and nursing. LA recipients include the Center for Caregiver Advancement, which is training home-health workers to be prepared for disasters such as the Los Angeles fires.

Supporting recovery and rebuilding in LA

Today, the Governor received the Los Angeles Jobs First Collaborative’s regional plan as part of his continued tour of the state’s thirteen economic regions, and announced new support to aid in LA’s rebuilding and recovery efforts:

$10 million on behalf of the State, LA Rises, Maersk and APM Terminals to the LA Region Small Business Relief Fund, a grant program run by the City and County of LA that will be critical in rebuilding fire-impacted communities.  This is the first investment by LA Rises, the unified recovery effort launched by the Governor in January and led by Dodgers Chairman Mark Walter, business leader and basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and Casey Wasserman. 

$3 million for the Los Angeles Jobs First Collaborative in their recovery efforts for the region, including for the launch of public-facing campaigns to promote small business support and the addition of capacity for near-term business and economic recovery. 

California Jobs First: Bold vision, realized locally

In 2021, Governor Newsom launched a statewide economic development planning process called the Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF), which was later renamed the Regional Investment Initiative under the banner of California Jobs First in 2023. The objective was to create good-paying, accessible jobs and sustainable economic growth across the state’s thirteen regions.

Each region created a planning body - or collaborative - with representation from a wide variety of community partners, including labor, business, local government, education, environmental justice, community organizations, and more. The collaboratives then wrote their own data-driven, community-led economic plans, including identifying strategic industry sectors.

To support this process, California has invested $287 million since 2022, including $5 million per region for planning, $39 million for pilot projects across the state and $14 million per region to develop viable projects that advance their strategic sectors.

In March 2024, Governor Newsom announced the creation of the California Jobs First Council, made up of nine Cabinet-level agencies, focused on streamlining the state’s economic and workforce development programs to create more family-supporting jobs and prioritize industry sectors for future growth.

California’s Economic Blueprint

The California Jobs First Economic Blueprint guides the state’s investments in key sectors to drive sustainable economic growth, innovation, and access to good-paying jobs over the next decade. Made up of ten strategic industry sectors, this framework will help streamline the state’s economic, business, and workforce development programs to create more jobs, faster. 

The state’s thirteen economic regions engaged more than 10,000 local residents and experts who collectively identified these sectors as key to driving local economies into the future.

California’s economy has industries at all stages of advancement and growth. They are categorized as follows within the Economic Blueprint:

• Strengthen: Sectors where California has an established competitive position and/or significant employment, but where there is leveling growth or wages
• Accelerate: Sectors with moderate to high projected growth that are ready for expansion, where additional investments (e.g., capital, infrastructure) could “bend the curve” to generate growth
• Bet: Emerging sectors with significant investment or high strategic importance to the innovation ecosystem
• Anchor: Regional anchors that are critical for attracting and supporting industry activities while also providing quality, good-paying jobs within local communities

Training workers for jobs in growth sectors 

The workforce training dollars announced by Gov. Newsom on Wednesday mark another significant milestone in meeting the governor’s goal of creating 500,000 new training slots by 2029. Since 2019, California has served 201,000 registered apprentices, solidifying its position as the nation’s leader in apprenticeship programs. More than 400,000 additional workers have or will be served through existing contracts for earn-and-learn programs, which provide income or stipends while training people for new jobs or to advance in their current fields. Much of the funding prioritizes high-growth sectors like healthcare and advanced manufacturing. 

The earn-and-learn model is represented in the soon-to-be-released California Master Plan for Career Education, which will prioritize hands-on learning and real-life skills. It envisions new tools to reflect the total of a person’s abilities, including a digital “Career Passport,” that can enable Californians to display their certified skills, badges, and credentials to advance economic mobility and skills-based hiring. The Master Plan on Career Education is designed to complement the Jobs First initiative by preparing a workforce to fill the jobs envisioned in each region.  

California’s economic dominance

California remains the fifth-largest economy in the world. With an increasing state population and recent record-high tourism spending, California is the nation’s top state for new business starts, access to venture capital funding, and manufacturing, high-tech, and agriculture.

Learn more

More information about the California Jobs First and the Economic Blueprint can be found here. For ongoing updates, follow California Jobs First on LinkedIn and X.