Nate Smith hopped in his Ford truck, flipped the A/C on full blast and set out for Holloway Street in Durham, North Carolina. He’s meeting with the owner of AutoSense Service Center to discuss an opening for a mechanic, and he has a student in mind. It’s a routine visit for Smith, a Durham native, […]
Skills Gap Articles
Changing classrooms in Minn.
In Southwest Minnesota, changing demographics are leading to changing educational needs. The region has seen a large influx of immigrants in the last 20 years. Within Worthington Public School District #518, about 68 percent of the high school students are from one of more than 40 cultures in the area. In the elementary schools, 78 […]
Engaging in deeper partnerships
The demand for highly skilled and educated workers continues to be one of the most pressing long-term workforce issues facing the country. Numerous research agencies have identified increasing post-secondary credentials among the labor force as a national imperative. In my own region of Pittsburgh, for instance, labor forecasts predict a potential shortfall of 80,000 workers […]
A head in the clouds can lead to employment
Cloud computing jobs utilizing Amazon Web Services (AWS) have increased by 177 percent since 2014. It’s predicted that, in Los Angeles County, there will be about 2,500 annual job openings for each of the next 5 years across all information technology occupations. Los Angeles community colleges produce 680 IT certificates, so a skills gap still […]
The revolution is coming
Robots will take over almost 40 percent of the jobs in 15 years and nearly half of existing jobs will disappear within the next 25 years, according to studies. How ready are we to transition to such a radically different future? Lifelong learning is an often cited answer. “Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury, […]
Tools for navigating career education in California
There are 114 colleges in the California Community Colleges system, all offering numerous programs that could lead to hundreds of different careers. That could be overwhelming to prospective students. To help people make sense of it all and make informed decisions about their education and career choices, the system developed two online resources. The Salary […]
Helping students reach new heights
Have you ever walked by (or under) a scaffolding outside a building and wondered who built that and how? Maybe not; maybe you passed by it and didn’t even give it a second thought. So it might be surprising to learn that there are actually a shortage of industrial scaffold builders, particularly in Texas and […]
In line for jobs at local MGM restaurants
Annie Rosa signed up for a free line cook training program at Holyoke Community College (HCC) in Massachusetts, with a clear objective in mind – get a job working in one of the new restaurants soon opening at MGM Springfield. The 38-year-old Springfield resident had worked in other restaurant kitchens, including Cracker Barrel, Cafe Lebanon […]
Investing in career education
In 2017, 38 percent of employment in San Diego County and 36 percent in Imperial County were for middle-skill jobs. Those percentages likely will grow by 2022, according to a report from the San Diego-Imperial Center of Excellence for Labor Market Research. In fact, between 2017 and 2022, there will be more than 47,000 job […]
Innovative grants help workers transition into new careers
Under Virginia’s New Economy Workforce Credential Grant program, one-third of the tuition for eligible non-credit certification programs is paid by the student, one-third is paid by the state when the student completes the training, and one-third is paid by the state when the student earns an industry-recognized credential. The success of the program “has surpassed […]