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Lansing region prepares 21st century workforce with job skills

Published on: 02/07/2017

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unfilled jobs in the greater Lansing region, a combination of low pay, part-time positions as well as plenty of high paying, lifetime career jobs begging for applicants and an array of services and support groups to help workers land them.

With training programs, partnerships, financial support and counseling, organizations like Capital Area Michigan Works!, Lansing Economic Area Partnership, the Capital Area Manufacturing Council as well as schools and businesses are engaged in building job skills and ensuring that the region has the 21st century workforce it needs to succeed.

“We’re in the middle of a perfect storm,” said Stephanie Comai, director of the Michigan Talent Investment Agency. The agency, formed by Gov. Rick Snyder just a year-and-a-half ago, was formed to deal with the state’s skilled worker shortage.

“Baby boomers are on the edge of retirement and we have not done a good job alerting young people about opportunities. We’ve done a strong job getting kids to go to college, but many jobs do not require a four-year university degree,” said Comai.

The Talent Investment Agency coordinates programs geared to job preparedness, career-based education, worker training, employment assistance and unemployment insurance. It promotes a listing of Michigan’s top 50 high-demand, high-wage jobs along with projected openings, growth rates, median wages and job requirements. Topping the list is physicians and surgeons with a median wage of $86.17 an hour and 434 openings annually. At the bottom are heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers with a median wage of $18.39 an hour and 1,565 openings.

The hot-job list includes 18 careers that do not require four years of college or more. Registered nurses, diagnostic medical sonographers and dental hygienists only need associate’s degrees and millwrights, electricians, steamfitters and operating engineers are all jobs that fall into the broad category of “skilled trades.” This is a sweet spot for Capital Area Michigan Works!, said its Executive Director, Edythe Hatter-Williams.

“Businesses are our primary customer. For us, we are the connector. Our role is educating the business community and education community about the importance of working together so that we have the workforce we need,” said Hatter-Williams.

Capital Area Michigan Works! provides funds for training and job support needs like clothing, transportation or licensing. It partners with businesses like Peckham, Inc. and General Motors as well as schools like Michigan State University, Lansing Community College and Ferris State University on career development.

Besides regional programs promoting jobs and careers in the manufacturing sector, there are initiatives focused on information technology jobs such as internship programs for students and non-students. Apprenticeships are also available, many pay workers while they learn, promising high paying, high-skilled jobs when completed.

Consumers Energy sponsors apprenticeships and internship programs to develop technical and managerial skills. It has a two-year apprentice program with Lansing Community College to train electric line workers, which Stacy Mowrer, director of learning and development at Consumers Energy termed “an enormous success.”

“Students go to school at LCC. They receive part of their training there and come on-site at our Marshall training center. Students come out of the program as trained linesmen and have most of the credits needed for an associate’s degree,” said Mowrer.

To date the program has 98 graduates, virtually all working for Consumers Energy or other utilities, Mowrer said. Recently, the company initiated a pilot training program called Power for America, which trains veterans for jobs in the company’s natural gas division. It selected 40 veterans for a four-week training program.