56 Ladders

By Mike Thibideau, President & CEO of Invest Hamilton County

I’ve been thinking about a question that sounds simple but isn’t: “What’s next?”

It’s the question a housekeeper asks after three years making $28,000. It’s the question a psychiatric aide asks when they realize they love the work but can’t sustain the wage. It’s the question a cashier asks, a childcare worker asks, a pharmacy technician asks. And for most people in most communities, there is no clear answer. There’s a vague sense that more education helps, but no map showing exactly where each credential leads, what it pays, and who’s hiring.

We just changed that for Hamilton County.

Through a project with Lightcast, with support from Hamilton County, City of Fishers, City of Westfield and City of Noblesville, IHC has launched a Community Career Ladder tool that maps 56 entry-point occupations across four career pathway categories — Behavioral Health, Hospitality, Part-Time, and In-Demand — with real salary data, real skill gap analysis, real employer demand, and real credential requirements at every rung. It’s interactive. You pick your starting point and see exactly where it can take you.

Let me walk through what’s inside.

Behavioral Health maps eight entry points: Social and Human Service Assistants, Home Health and Personal Care Aides, Community Health Workers, Orderlies, Psychiatric Technicians, and Psychiatric Aides. From any of those starting positions, the ladder shows pathways through associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral-level roles — from Recreational Therapist ($48,000) to Healthcare Social Worker ($68,420) to Nurse Practitioner to Psychiatrist. The data here is personal to me, and I’ll say more about that in a moment. But the numbers are striking on their own: 11,522 active social work-related job postings in the Indianapolis metro, and a 41-point gap between the social work skills employers demand (78.7% of postings) and the feeder workforce that actually has them (37.1%). Our Mental Health HPSA score is 19 out of 25 — a critical shortage. Mental health-related emergency events in Hamilton County tripled from 6,334 in 2017 to 22,138 in 2023. Depression affects 22.9% of our adults. The workforce crisis in behavioral health isn’t abstract. It’s measured in emergency rooms.

Hospitality maps five entry points: Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks, Maintenance and Repair Workers, Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners, Waiters and Waitresses, and Lodging Managers. This is the sector that employs people right now, today, often as their first real job. The ladder shows how a front desk clerk earning $30,000 can move into operations management, how a maintenance worker can advance into facilities management, and how the skills built in hospitality — customer service, operations, problem-solving under pressure — transfer into dozens of other sectors. Hamilton County’s hospitality industry is a $1.4 billion economic engine. The people who power it deserve to see where it can take them.

Part-Time is the largest category with 22 entry points, and it’s the one I think might matter most. This tab maps career pathways for people currently working part-time… Animal Caretakers, Childcare Workers, Customer Service Representatives, Graphic Designers, Insurance Sales Agents, Janitors, Nursing Assistants, Paralegals, Pharmacy Technicians, Preschool Teachers, Receptionists, Recreation Workers, Retail Salespersons, Teaching Assistants, and more. These are the roles held by parents managing schedules around childcare, by students working through college, by people re-entering the workforce after a gap. We know from our data that 2,339 work-willing parents in Hamilton County are ready to return to full-time employment if conditions allow. The Part-Time ladder shows them the bridge — here’s where you are, here’s what’s one step up, and here’s what the credential investment looks like in real dollars.

In-Demand maps 21 entry points across Hamilton County’s highest-growth sectors: Industrial Engineers, Software Developers, Construction Managers, Database and Network Architects, Registered Nurses, Accountants, Marketing Managers, General and Operations Managers, Chemical Equipment Operators, Clinical Lab Technicians, and more. These are the occupations where employer demand is surging — Business and Financial Operations jobs grew 31.5% over five years, Management roles grew 30.0%, and Healthcare Practitioners grew 7.6% year-over-year. The In-Demand ladder connects people already in adjacent roles to the positions employers are most desperate to fill.

Across all four tabs, the tool does something I haven’t seen anywhere else: it shows the skill gaps at every transition. Not just “you need a bachelor’s degree,” but specifically which competencies employers list in their postings that the current feeder workforce lacks. Discharge planning. Long-term care expertise. Leadership and management skills. Operations knowledge. These are the gaps that training programs need to close, and now we can point to the exact data that proves it.

I want to be honest about why this matters to me. I’ve talked before in this space about my own recovery journey. I know what it feels like to need a path and not see one. I also know what it feels like when someone shows you the very next step — not the destination five years away, but the thing you can do right now. That’s what career ladders do. They turn an overwhelming gap into a series of manageable steps. A psychiatric aide doesn’t need to see “become a psychiatrist.” They need to see “here’s the next rung, here’s what it pays, and here’s who will hire you when you get there.”

Hamilton County has 177,500 jobs, a $29.1 billion GDP, and a 2.1% unemployment rate. By most measures, our labor market is one of the strongest in America. But strength isn’t the same as mobility. The question isn’t whether we have jobs. It’s whether the people in our community can see the path from where they are to where the economy needs them.

Fifty-six ladders. Four industries. One tool. That’s the start.

Explore the Career Ladder: invest-hamilton.eimpactv3.com/dashboards/427

Sources: Invest Hamilton County Career Ladder Tool (eImpact/Metaimpact), BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics 2024, Lightcast Q1 2026, HRSA Health Professional Shortage Areas, CDC PLACES 2026, Indiana MPH MH Event Data, County Health Rankings 2025, BEA GDP by County 2023, Census LEHD 2023