Far North COE Spotlights Promising “Focus” Occupations
A new highlight report by the Far North Center of Excellence identifies significant analytical insights from its seven district profiles released in late 2025.
The highlight report examines “focus” occupations aligned with labor market demand in seven community college districts across the Far North subregion. Focus occupations are middle-skill jobs that typically do not require a bachelor’s degree and pay above a living wage or have a substantial number of average annual openings, or both.
The identification of focus occupations can help inform future program investments by community college districts and priorities in the North Far North Strong Workforce Program (SWP) Regional Plan.
Key Findings:
Some sectors are employment hubs—Across all districts, focus occupation employment and average annual openings tend to be highly concentrated in two sectors: the health sector and the business and entrepreneurship sector.
Unique focus occupations—Some community college districts are home to focus occupations that do not occur elsewhere in the subregion, presenting an opportunity for program development or targeted coordination with employers. Examples include food service managers in Butte-Glenn Community College District and interpreters and translators in Mendocino-Lake Community College District.
Opportunity areas for new programs—Sectors containing focus occupations for which no awards have been conferred may offer opportunities for program development. Life sciences and biotechnology is one sector with no awards that has a total of 155 average annual openings across four community college districts. Similarly, the retail, hospitality, and tourism sector has a total of 248 average annual openings across three community college districts where no awards have been issued.
The seven community college districts examined by the study are Butte-Glenn, Feather River, Lassen, Mendocino-Lake, Redwoods, Siskiyou Joint, and Shasta-Tehama-Trinity Joint.