A new job pipeline opens for community college students into health care careers

A new initiative aims to strength­en the Los Angeles regional workforce by creating a direct employment pipeline between local educational institutions, such as the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) and major health care employers. 

The initiative, officially known as A Paradigm Shift, was launched by the Los Angeles Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, the oldest and largest business advocacy and organizing lobby in the L.A. region. 

Maria Salinas, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said the program looks to connect Angelenos in community colleges to in-demand jobs in healthcare, technology and trade jobs. 

“What this is about is bringing employers to the front end, bringing those employers to the table, and doing that in a manner where we're creating these effective partnerships,” she said. 

Salinas said that for the Los Angeles Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, which represents over 235,000 businesses and 1,400 member companies, their goal with A Paradigm Shift was always to help close workforce gaps in the city and Southern California while also supporting and academically preparing students to join the local workforce. 

The academia and workforce partnership will create pathways to high-growth careers through internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing and work-based learning opportunities for students in the nine LACCD campuses, including East Los Angeles College, Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Southwest College and Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, among others. 

“We're incredibly excited with this partnership because for the first time, we have a concerted effort where the Los Angeles Area Cham­ber of Com­merce and other partners are coming to the community college district and saying to us, ‘We're ready to provide jobs for your students,’” Alberto Román, chancellor of LACCD, told CALÓ News. “Our opportunity would be to create a direct pipeline between our students graduating and then going directly into one of these partners' workforce development opportunities. We're not just hoping; this will guarantee that our students will actually get placed with one of these employers.”

The initiative was announced in a press conference on Monday at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, where healthcare providers, educators and philanthropic partners celebrated the employer-led workforce.

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, along with its partners, including the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, said the first phase of A Paradigm Shift would be to help medical facilities secure more healthcare employees, many of whom will come from LACCD and their healthcare and human services accreditation programs and majors.  

Zoila Escobar, president of AltaMed Foundation and executive vice president of AltaMed Health Services, talked about the major need for workers among healthcare organizations like AltaMed, which serves the majority of Latinos and working-class patients. 

“When people think of healthcare needs, they think doctors and nurses, but healthcare really is a whole world in itself and anybody who has any kind of healthcare business will require everything from construction workers all the way to data scientists to people who understand business development and accounting and who can really take the whole spirit together to give us a different result for healthcare in the United States,” she said. “This is an evolving economy and that requires a very evolving workforce.”

She said one of the components that differentiates AltaMed Health Services from other health organizations is that most of their employees live within six to eight miles of any of their clinics. Escobar said this is something she hopes A Paradigm Shift could continue to support them with. 

“The students who are going to the community colleges and the local universities are people who grow up in the same communities,” she said. “If the right educational system and the right healthcare systems come together, then that basic community that we start from will thrive.”

The initiative is designed to transform how employers and educators collaborate to train, recruit and retain talent across L.A.

Román said the partnership will not only be beneficial for LACCD students going into the workforce but also for health care facilities, which will benefit immensely from having workers that are culturally competent, local and acclimated to the regions and communities they serve. 

“LACCD serves some of the most underserved students in L.A., first-generation college students, many of whom are undocumented, veterans and hardworking people. For our students, the community college system is much more meaningful and impactful because we know all the barriers that they go through,” he told CALÓ News. “Community colleges are, in fact, the greatest opportunity that healthcare has to bring people of color who are culturally competent and speak multiple languages and can identify culturally with many of their patients. It is a great match to match our students who are in the community to serve their own community.” 

Phase one of A Paradigm Shift will address the critical shortages in healthcare roles by hiring imaging technologists, surgical technologists, sterile processing technicians, nursing assistants, and data scientists. 

According to the Los Angeles Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, partners are now aligning open roles with available training seats, with student enrollment planned for late 2026.