Local business leaders are still pushing to get Jackson County registered as a “Certified Work Ready Community.” About 200 businesses need to sign up for that to happen.
“It’s important to do this, even if you’re not hiring right now,” Lara Vermillion, president of the Blue Springs Chamber of Commerce, told business owners and others at a recent chamber gathering
Lara Vermillion, president of the Blue Springs Chamber of Commerce, was giving her members an update on the Certified Work Ready Community program. Workers take a test akin to the ACT most of us took in high school. It measures skill areas such as graphic literacy, applied math and workplace documents
ACT offers the only comprehensive workforce development solution for businesses and communities. Supported by 483 counties across the country. Recognized by 25,000 businesses. Credentials awarded to 4.7 million individuals starting or advancing their careers. Our mission is to help create thriving workforce ecosystems that foster economic growth. From our industry-leading assessments like ACT WorkKeys and Tessera Workforce to our nationally-recognized career readiness credential, National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) and our skills validation platform, ACT Stack, ACT offers leading workforce development solutions that help businesses and communities thrive and prosper.
“Being a site selector I often find it difficult to compare labor force data when there is little information on how potential workforce will perform on assessments given by companies. Not only does Work Keys function as a preferred assessment tool in industry today but the ACT WorkReady Communities website allows me to compare communities so I can recommend to my clients the counties with the best scores and the percentage of the population that are taking the assessment”
Revised application for the North Carolina onboarding process in Work Ready Communities
The Mississippi Delta has been a leader focusing on the importance of developing Certified Work Ready Communities in its region. A dozen counties in the Mississippi Delta have already obtained work ready certification, and five more counties are working toward becoming certified.
Radial leaders from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, gathered recently for their day of learning and volunteer work and selected the Eau Claire County Work Ready project as their focus. Following company training, they learned about Work Eau Claire, its benefits, and later spent the afternoon contacting employers not yet engaged with the project.&nb
GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) - Harrison County is now part of the ACT Work Ready Initiative. The program sets up training for high school career-tech students, so they’ll be ready to meet the needs of future employers.
Thirty-five counties in Mississippi are certified, while 48 counties are taking part in the program. Harrison County is one of those pushing towards certification.
"The clock starts ticking, we have two years from today to get those 479 folks and 82 employers we need to be certified,” said Mel Arsenault, Port of Gulfport external affairs
Wise County and Norton have launched an effort to become certified “work ready” communities as judged by an initiative of the data processing company ACT.
According to a press release issued last week, the process began Sept. 24 with a kickoff ceremony at the Virginia Career Works Center in Norton, demonstrating the localities’ “commitment to developing a strong workforce pipeline, desirable to employers, economic developers and current and future citizens of the county.”
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