Multiple employers in the North-east Ohio Manufacturing sector, community stakeholders, politi-cal representatives, and non-profit companies related to man-ufacturing training; in addition to education institutes Cuyahoga Community College and Cleve-land Metropolitan Schools convened at the Cleveland Job Corps Center on December 12, 2016, for a Workforce Summit.
The Workroom Program Alliance met to deliberate about current and future manufacturing training in Northeast Ohio, and to come up with an action plan to build a grassroots workforce to fill employment need gaps for both employers and the local community.
During the Workforce Summit, everyone discussed the advantages of starting education at a young age as early as K-6, to begin attracting youth to the manufacturing em-ployment sector, which makes up 20 percent of the Northeast Ohio region’s gross re-gional product. Manufacturing and distribution companies such as Amazon, Mar-Bal, Matalco, National DCP, and Pison Stream are currently expanding in Northeast Ohio with new facilities that will support hundreds of new jobs. The current average worker’s age in manufacturing is disproportionately high, creating a need for a new and youthful infusion into the sector which has jobs that are typically physically demanding. By introducing career opportunities at a young age and by performing outreach through mobile maker labs, the workroom alliance hopes to attract new employees through fostering a mechanical mindset, creative problem solving, collaboration, and communication in a manufacturing context. These youths would then be encouraged to pursue further training and employment in the manufacturing sector.
One of the immediate goals of the Workforce summit, was to pull together support to fill a recently vacated shop at the Cleveland Job Corps with in-demand manufacturing training that would create a bridge between lower and secondary education, higher edu-cation, and the manufacturing workforce. The Cleveland Job Corps plans to replace the Sign, Billboard, and Display program which moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota due to a better labor market fit. The new program would give the basis for essential manu-facturing training and allow students to transition into the workforce with a general manufacturing education, or pursue further education through programs sponsored at Cuyahoga Community College in Precision Machine Technology or Welding before being placed in high paying demand jobs.
All the participants of the summit were invigorated and excited to get into action to fulfill these goals through the formation of sub-committees that would tackle different areas addressed, such as community outreach, programming, curriculum, and appren-ticeships.