Strategically saving announcement of their new landmark partnership, organizers of the First Annual York County Workforce Development Summit took to the podium last Thursday afternoon and announced that the Economic Development Corporations office of Workforce Development would be joining forces with the York County Alliance For Learning to create new workforce development opportunities. Working with 17 schools in the York County region, the two entities will create internship, training and educational opportunities for high school students looking for a career after graduation.
As the economy changes, skilled jobs like manufacturing, for example, are not going away, they are changing, says YCEDC Manager of Workforce Development Ellie Lamison. You no longer have someone who sits in the same spot and puts the nut on the widget every single day. There is a robot to do that. What there needs to be is someone to fix the robot; someone with advanced training but not necessarily a college degree.
Lamison and company hope this partnership will show students the job opportunities that exist in their own backyard and will embolden a York County workforce that has experienced an exodus of outsourced manufacturing jobs and technologically trained graduates. Going beyond manufacturing and existing industry jobs, the YCEDC has a mentorship program for interested entrepreneurs and future small business owners; a program they hope to expand through this partnership. Consulting with the Alliance For Learning, Lamison says, will allow her office to better tailor programs to meet the needs of todays students for the workforce they will soon enter.
As time goes on, the lifelong learning ladder will become increasingly important because the jobs people are training for may be obsolete in four to five years, Lamison says. This program will give us a chance to talk to students about starting their own business or preparing to meet their goals.
Source: Ellie Lamison, York County Economic Development Corporation
Writer: John Steele
