A bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers announced an ambitious effort last week to help the state’s workers find good or better jobs. It is a good thought and a fitting aspiration for state leadership. They should be careful, however, in what they promise. At any level of government, boosting employment is far easier to talk about than to accomplish.

The announcement showed promise, nonetheless, both in its tone and its content.

For starters, it had members from both sides of the aisle lining up behind it. In any legislative effort that is always a welcome sign. It not only suggests that the measure will pass, it all but guarantees that there will not be the kind of partisan bickering that has been all too common in recent years.

Beyond that, though, the ideas expressed have merit. As reported (Herald, March 8), the “Colorado Ready to Work” package would include a series of measures.

It would create an apprenticeship program intended to lead to engineering and research careers. In it, interns would be paid a minimum of $10 per hour with businesses being eligible for reimbursement of half their expenses, up to $5,000.

A statewide coordinator position would be established to work with the Colorado Workforce Development Council and industry to determine what career paths should be encouraged or emphasized to connect high school students with viable careers.

It would expand mobile learning lab programs, sending more instructors to employers to train workers in more advanced skills.

Students would be allowed to apply course work to apprenticeship programs. Scholarships would also be made available for students to cover advanced technology programs.

Unemployment benefits would be extended for those in skill-training programs.

Income-tax credits would be offered to employers who hire graduates of Colorado universities who go into science, engineering, math or other high-tech fields. Students studying those fields would also be eligible for help with student loans. (Colorado has a higher-than-average percentage of college graduates, but the state tends to import them.)

The information technology field would be bolstered by creating partnerships with industry to offer a mix of internships, mentoring and IT courses.

And, counties would be authorized to create workforce development programs to offer financial help to high school graduates to pursue post-secondary training. Included is the novel idea that property-tax credits could be offered to taxpayers who contribute to the efforts.

All those are ideas that at the least are worth looking into. That is particularly true in that they apparently recognize that not all workers need a college degree – and that not all jobs should require them. Education is a proven way to get people into better jobs, increase the overall stock of jobs and improve the economy overall. But post-secondary training need not be limited only to four-year degrees.

What lawmakers and job-seekers alike should watch for, however, is an unwarranted level of expectations. Campaign stump speeches frequently include references to creating jobs, lowering unemployment and boosting the overall economy. But there is no switch to throw, no lever to pull that will turn on the jobs market or put the economy in high gear. There is no such switch in the White House, in Congress or the Federal Reserve. And if those entities lack such a device, there is certainly is not one in Denver.

That said, the proposed plan probably has worthwhile components and clearly comes with good intentions. For, as House Majority Leader Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, put it, “This issue of being ready to work is not a Republican issue, it’s not a Democratic issue – it’s a Colorado issue.”