Youth and Workforce Readiness
Ensuring that our country has a skilled workforce in manufacturing is key to a variety of industries and to our country as a whole. To that end, on January 28, Mike Reader presented at the “Speaker’s Task Force on Youth Workforce Readiness,” at Milwaukee Area Technical College – Oak Creek Campus. This event allowed the Speaker’s Task Force to explore new ways to encourage Wisconsin youth to pursue careers in the trades, manufacturing industry, and technical fields.
Wisconsin is a leader in the manufacturing industry, but there are still challenges that it faces in this area. Building awareness and better preparing our youth for the future will help to bridge any gaps as they move from high schools, technical schools, and colleges into the workforce. The Speaker’s Task Force’s priorities for the event included:
- Improving collaboration between schools, technical colleges, and local employers.
- Better informing parents and students about apprenticeship and internship programs.
- Expanding career-focused counseling to more comprehensively include technical careers.
- Studying creative models in schools throughout the state that are already incorporating technical education and workforce into curriculum.
- Examining future industry needs and challenges in Wisconsin.
- Reducing barriers for students to participate in dual enrollment programs with high school and technical colleges.
- Exploring additional programming in the UW System for Career and Technical Education (CTE) certified instructors.
- Remarketing the perception of the manufacturing field from “dark, dirty, and dead-end” to family-supporting, challenging, and stable careers.
- Leveraging the Labor Market Information System (LMIS) to provide real time data on current and projected workforce pipeline.
The Speaker’s Task Force on Youth Workforce Readiness is key to understanding the needs of our youth, our schools, and our industry. China Instrument Parts is proud to be a part of this ongoing effort and seeks to be a leader in ensuring our country’s manufacturing sector remains viable with skilled technicians for years to come.
