A manufacturing process that creates three-dimensional objects by adding material layer by layer, guided by digital 3D model data and building parts directly from materials such as plastics, metals, or resins. This technology is widely used in 3D printing for rapid prototyping, custom tooling, and the production of end-use parts. It is especially used in industry sectors such as aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and consumer products, where it enables complex designs, lightweight structures, and low-volume or personalized production.

By contrast, traditional subtractive methods remove material from a solid block.

The caregiving workforce refers to the paid and unpaid individuals who provide health, personal care, supervision, social support, and related services to individuals who require assistance due to age, disability, illness, or developmental needs. This workforce spans the lifespan and includes workers serving children, individuals with disabilities, chronically ill individuals, and older adults.

The caregiving workforce includes direct care workers (such as home health aides, personal care aides, and direct support professionals), licensed health professionals (including nurses and therapists), social workers, case managers, care coordinators, and family caregivers. Services are delivered across diverse settings, including private homes, childcare centers, community-based organizations, healthcare facilities, long-term care settings, and residential programs.

Discussions about the caregiving workforce in the U.S. trace back to the emergence of modern long-term care systems and labor policy debates in the 20th century. The term gained broader economic and social recognition in the late 20th and early 21st centuries alongside research on the “care economy” — a framing that highlights the indispensable labor of caregivers, its contribution to the broader economy, and the disparities in pay, training, and support experienced by many in these roles. This framing has shaped policy conversations about labor rights, workforce development, and social safety nets.

In the U.S. today:

• Family and unpaid caregivers: An estimated 63 million Americans are family caregivers — nearly one in four adults — providing care for children, adults with disabilities, or older adults, a figure that has increased by roughly 45% over the past decade. About 11 million of these caregivers receive some form of compensation through Medicaid, VA, or state programs.
• Direct care workers: The paid caregiving workforce — often described in research as the direct care workforce — includes roughly 5.4 million workers such as home care workers, residential care aides, and nursing assistants, and projections suggest significant growth in demand for these roles in coming years.
• Workforce pressures: Nearly half of direct care workers rely on public assistance due in part to low wages, and job openings in direct care are projected to be very high over the next decade as demand rises with the aging population.

In policy and economic discussions, the caregiving workforce is often associated with the broader “care economy,” reflecting its central role in supporting labor force participation, economic stability, and community well-being. Challenges facing this workforce include labor shortages, low wages in many direct-care occupations, high turnover, inconsistent training and credential requirements, and uneven access to benefits and career advancement pathways.

The eldercare workforce, a subset of the caregiving workforce, defined specifically by its focus on serving older adults, and other subsets include the childcare workforce and the disability services workforce.

See: Eldercare Workforce | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

The eldercare workforce refers to the paid and unpaid individuals who provide health, personal, social, and supportive services specifically to older adults, typically age 65 and above. This workforce includes direct care workers in home- and community-based settings, certified nursing assistants and nursing home staff, licensed healthcare professionals (such as nurses and therapists), social workers, care coordinators, long-term care administrators, and family caregivers whose care recipients are older adults.

In the mid-20th century, eldercare was primarily a family responsibility, with most support provided informally by relatives. As women entered the paid workforce in larger numbers and life expectancy increased, structural gaps in eldercare became more visible, prompting public policy debates about long-term care financing, workforce training, and support systems. In 2009, coalition efforts such as the formation of the Eldercare Workforce Alliance signaled a more organized policy focus on training and retaining workers capable of meeting the needs of an aging population, building on earlier calls from national health bodies to expand geriatric education and workforce capacity.

In terms of size and scale in the United States:

• Unpaid eldercare: According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 2023–24, an estimated 38.2 million U.S. adults age 15 and over provided unpaid care to someone age 65 or older during that period, representing about 14% of the civilian noninstitutional population.
• Paid direct care workers: The broader group of direct care workers — many of whom provide support to older adults — includes roughly 5.4 million workers in the U.S., comprising home care workers, residential care aides, and nursing assistants across settings such as home care agencies and longterm care facilities.
• Long-term care employment footprint: Industries providing home and community-based care accounted for about 4.3 million jobs in mid-2024, including services primarily for older adults and people with disabilities.
• Projected growth: Employment of home health and personal care aides — key components of the eldercare workforce — is expected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations over the next decade, driven by rising demand for aging-related support services.

The eldercare workforce operates across private homes, assisted living communities, nursing homes, healthcare facilities, hospice programs, and community-based organizations. Demand for these services is increasing rapidly as the U.S. population ages and more adults live longer with chronic conditions.

Because the eldercare workforce is defined by the age cohort it serves (older adults), it is a subset of the broader caregiving workforce, which includes workers serving individuals across the lifespan. This age-specific focus shapes unique workforce challenges — including workforce shortages, training needs in geriatric care, compensation structures, and policy frameworks for long-term services and supports.

See: Caregiving Workforce | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

Refers to a core set of industries that provide the foundational goods, services, and infrastructure necessary for a nation’s functioning and growth. In the United States, this includes construction, manufacturing, energy, public services, transportation and logistics, and skilled trades. Collectively, these industries employ approximately 95 million workers across 3 million businesses and generate over one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). Despite its outsized role in supporting daily life and long-term economic resilience, the Essential Economy faces persistent challenges—including labor shortages, skill gaps, and declining productivity. These challenges pose risks to national competitiveness and future prosperity.

A green skill or sustainable skill refers to the knowledge and abilities people need to support environmental sustainability in the workplace and the economy. These skills include things like energy efficiency practices, sustainable agriculture, waste reduction, renewable energy technology, and environmental compliance. They are becoming essential across many industries, not just in traditional “green” jobs because of growing demand for environmentally responsible practices in sectors like construction, manufacturing, transportation, and education. Developing green skills helps prepare learners and workers for careers that contribute to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future.

Refers to the relocation or expansion of business activities, jobs, or production processes within a company’s home country rather than abroad. It may involve bringing work that was previously performed overseas back to domestic locations, establishing new domestic production capacity instead of foreign operations, or shifting tasks and services from international suppliers to domestic providers.

Onshoring can occur at multiple levels of economic activity. Firms may return entire production facilities or supply chains to domestic locations, or they may relocate specific tasks—such as manufacturing components, software development, customer service, or logistics operations—previously performed in foreign markets. In some cases, onshoring reflects “reshoring,” where companies bring back activities that had earlier been offshored; in other cases, it represents new domestic investment rather than the reversal of earlier offshoring decisions.

Several factors have contributed to renewed interest in onshoring in the 2020s, including supply chain disruptions, geopolitical risks, rising international transportation costs, national industrial policies, and advances in automation that reduce labor cost differentials between countries. Governments have also encouraged onshoring through incentives designed to strengthen domestic manufacturing capacity, critical technologies, and workforce development.

Onshoring has implications for labor markets, regional economic development, and workforce training systems, particularly when new domestic industries require specialized technical skills or new apprenticeship and credential pathways.

These terms should not be confused with:

• Offshoring: relocating work or production from a company’s home country to another country.
• Outsourcing: contracting work to an external organization, which may occur domestically or internationally.
• Reshoring: a subset of onshoring referring specifically to bringing previously offshored work back to the home country.

Refers to an employer strategy of moving employees into different roles, assignments, or out of the organization based on their skills, adaptability, and future potential. Traditionally, the term has described structured programs where employees rotate across departments or functions to broaden experience, build skills, and prepare for leadership. Increasingly, in the context of rapid technological change (including artificial intelligence), talent rotation can also involve reassessing workforce readiness: employees whose skills are adaptable may be retrained or redeployed into new roles, while those who cannot—or choose not to—adapt may be rotated out of (exited from) the organization.

See Topic Brief: Talent Rotation in the AI Era | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library