Morcos Key

A 21st-Century Workforce Development System

Technology, globalization, and demographic changes have reshaped the U.S. workforce. Yet, workforce preparation has stayed the same over the past several decades, prompting RAND researchers to reimagine the U.S. workforce development and employment system.

In creating a visualization of the reimagined workforce development system, the designers of Morcos Key sought to make what may seem like an abstract concept entertaining and accessible. The open spiral is “a metaphor for the journey that unfolds throughout one's life, with goals such as learning, working, adapting, and thriving,” they said.

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An illustration visualizing a new 21st century workforce development system, artwork by Morcos Key

Morcos Key's illustration envisions how America's workforce system could be transformed to better support 21st-century workers, employers, and educators.

The artists of Morcos Key used “simplified illustrations to represent top-level concepts like the Education System or the Economy on a highly interconnected system with multiple access points.” Here are the images from the animation for a closer look.

Explore RAND's Workforce Development Research

RAND's study pinpoints the ways in which the U.S. workforce development and employment system is failing many, and envisions how educators, employers, workers, and other stakeholders can rebuild and transform it. It's the first step in moving the United States to a system that accounts for workers' needs for lifelong learning, employers' continuously changing workforce requirements, rapid and often disruptive changes in technology, and the ever-evolving nature of work.

About Morcos Key

Portrait of Morcos Key

Morcos Key is the Brooklyn-based design studio of Jon(athan) Key and Wael Morcos. In their work, they often collaborate with arts and cultural institutions, nonprofits, and commercial enterprises in North America and the Middle East. Their goal is to create visual systems that demonstrate how thoughtful conversation and formal expression make for impactful design.

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