CT’s workforce strategy challenged by federal ‘unpredictability,’ official says
Harriet Jones
Chair of the Governor's Workforce Council, Ryan Drajewicz, speaks to the CBIA's Workforce Summit at the Aqua Turf club in Plantsville.
The chair of Gov. Ned Lamont’s Workforce Council says that implementing the state’s new workforce strategy will be challenging because of both disruption in the federal government and the rise of generative AI.
“As a one-time Connecticut resident, Mike Tyson once said, ‘Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face,’” said Ryan Drajewicz.
He was speaking during the Connecticut Business & Industry Association’s 2025 Workforce Summit, which attracted around 500 attendees.
“I think there isn’t a person in this room who doesn’t recognize the recent unpredictability coming out of Washington, and within that, the difficulty in being able to confidently rely on federal support and resources which were critical to so many of the successful initiatives in this plan,” said Drajewicz, a former chief of staff to Lamont, who is also head of external affairs at hedge fund Bridgewater.
He linked the challenges to a macro-economic paradigm shift towards what “we at Bridgewater call modern mercantilism” - a change from globalization to a world where nation states are becoming more protectionist.
“Those implications to the economy are significant, and they are playing out in real time,” he said.
In addition to the federal and global changes, he also named the disruption brought by the implementation of generative AI as another major challenge to creating a coherent workforce strategy.
“The ground is shifting under our feet in real time,” he said. “The future is here and we are already behind.”
The state’s workforce strategy focuses on creating what it calls a “future-ready” labor force to support economic growth, and attract and retain businesses.
“This is an important moment because prior to this strategic plan we had a lot of great individuals, organizations, agencies doing really great things, but they weren’t necessarily connected to a statewide workforce strategy,” he said.
Drajewicz said the strategy aims to serve as a directional guide and accurately predict demand for future jobs.
Kelli-Marie Vallieres, the state’s chief workforce officer, said Connecticut’s ongoing training partnerships need to recognize some of the structural issues in the state.
“We have the largest educational gap and income gap in almost any other state,” she said. “There are a group of people who are continuously left behind.”
She said the strategic plan recognizes that there needs to be a collaborative effort to solve these issues, emphasizing job growth, skills and access.
Vallieres touted the state’s investment of $70 million into short-term, sector-based training programs under the five-year-old Career Connect initiative.
“We’ve exceeded every metric that we’ve set,” she said, saying that the program has so far trained 7,000 people with 77% of those achieving employment.
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