Michael S. Bernick

Michael S. Bernick (born October 1, 1952) is an American lawyer. He served as Director of California's labor department, the Employment Development Department (EDD), from 1999 to 2004, and has been involved in developing and implementing job training and employment projects on the state and local levels for over four decades. He is the author of a series of articles and books drawing on these projects and centered on achieving fuller employment and expanding the middle class. He continues to be active today in the employment field as counsel with Duane Morris LLP, and as the long-time research director of the California Workforce Association (CWA), and Fellow with the Milken institute and Burning Glass Institute.

In a series of articles and books written during the 1980s and 1990s, based on experiences at the San Francisco Renaissance Center and other community-based organizations, he argues against the then-expanding social welfare system. He sets out alternative jobs-based strategies and ownership-based strategies, including ones of rapid job placement with supports, inner city entrepreneurship and market-based training and job ladders.

Since the early 2000s, his projects, first at the EDD and then through the CWA, continue to address workers who have greatest difficulty finding steady work. ''Job Training That Gets Results'' (2006)  identifies elements of effective job training programs, and roles for affinity groups and other mutual support groups outside of government.    Other projects from this period test strategies for improving the mobility of lower wage workforces and increasing investment in these workforces.

The employment of adults with autism and other neurodiverse conditions is the subject of multiple projects, as well as two books in the 2000s. ''The Autism Job Club'' (2015) discusses the  emerging structured and intentional neurodiversity hiring programs within major firms, as well as the new sub-sector of neurodiversity workforce intermediaries. ''The Autism Full Employment'' ''Act'' (2021), discusses autism employment initiatives as the American economy rebuilds post-pandemic. Provided by Wikipedia