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St. Louis County, Missouri
The Missouri Department of Higher Education & Workforce Development (MDHEWD) was recently recognized at the ACT Workforce Summit in Atlanta, Georgia for having 13 counties maintaining or achieving their Certified Work Ready Community status in the past year.
Missouri currently leads the nation with a total of 99 Certified Work Ready Communities and 112 communities that are participating and working towards certification.
Congratulations to the Work Ready Community of St. James Parrish in Louisiana for topping Site Selection Magazine's recent rankings of America's Best Counties for capital investments and jobs created. Other WRCs that made the list include Ouachita in Arkansas, St. Louis in Missouri, Saluda in South Carolina, and Haywood in Tennessee.
According to Site Selection Magazine, St. James Parish topped the list with projects such as FG LA LLC, a member of Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group, investing $9.4 billion in The Sunshine Project, an industrial complex for making chemicals and plastics. About 1,200 people will work at the facility when it’s operational.
“The program can be life-changing for students by offering them the opportunity to make a living wage and provide for their families,” said Aurora Bihler, BUD program coordinator and member of Iron Workers Local 396. “It’s an introduction to the building trades that offers the skills you should have before you go into a construction career like OSHA 10 and CPR/first aid, and it’s also a hands-on program at the apprenticeship schools to see what kind of work you enjoy and what would be a good fit.”
Applicants must be 18 or older, eligible to work in the United States, have WorkKeys exam results and meet Military Selective Service Requirements, if born male. Preferred credentials are a Level 5 score on WorkKeys Applied Math and WorkKeys Workplace Documents, a negative drug test and a high school diploma or equivalent.
The mission of the St. Louis BUD program is to build a more inclusive workforce by increasing construction trade participation among traditionally under-represented groups, including minorities and women. It provides pre-apprentices with the opportunity to visit local building trades unions to give them hands-on basic training and a feel for each of the trades.
Unprecedented skill shortages in labor markets across the U.S. often intersect with a desire for Justice System reform that provides pathways for Returning Citizens to thrive. When optimized in a regional workforce ecosystem, Returning Citizens are a high-performing group of working learners to boost a regional talent pipeline. In a two-part series, ACT's Ready for Work podcast examines a Five P's framework for re-entry success in Episode 32. Life-Changing Asset and Skill-Based Solutions iAlternative Sentencing for Episode 31 showcases the success drug court approach in Morgan County, AL.
Congratulations to the local Work Ready Communities in Bourbon County, Kansas, recipient of the Projects with a Purpose award, and the St. Louis, Missouri region, for the award on Community Innovation.
