A strong, skilled workforce is the most important characteristic a region has for attracting industry, commerce and business.
What is workforce development? It is an organized means of developing usable job skills, and being able to market those skills focusing on the potential workers. Developing a workforce can take time, energy, and financial investment. While there will be benefits for employees, it’s also important to focus on developing those skills, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors that will significantly impact business.
The Simpson County Technical Center is a good example of not only student achievement in academics but also of a “multi-dimensional learning community.” The center is headed by Dr. Bo Huffman, who leads a well-trained staff who challenge the students with state of the art resources and unique curriculum.
Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Simpson County Center, is another local source of career ready opportunities. Not only do they prepare students with a quality education to receive advanced degrees from four-year colleges and universities, but they also offer career training programs designed to affordably prepare students for employment or improve upon existing skills in a short amount of time. Programs such as nursing, truck driving, welding, heating and air conditioning, to name a few, are available on the main campus in Wesson and some are offered at the Simpson Center. The Simpson Center has applied for a grant to add an Automation and Control Technology Program.
Through the efforts of Copiah Lincoln Community College and
the Simpson County Development Foundation, we are working toward becoming a certified ACT Work Ready Community. This certification empowers counties and states with process, data and tools deployed in a common workforce development framework to drive economic growth by certifying counties as work ready communities when established goals are attained.
By achieving certified ACT Work Ready Communities status, we will be demonstrating that we have a robust workforce development effort aligned to the employment needs of business and industry.
The common criteria are based upon the ACT WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificate (ACT WorkKeys NCRC) and business engagement to create a community-based workforce development process that links, aligns and matches the county’s workforce development efforts to the needs of business and industry.
The Simpson County School District, the Technology Center, and Simpson Academy will soon be testing students to determine their skills in workplace documents, applied math and graphic literacy. By participating in ACT’s Work Ready Communities initiative, counties, regions and states are helping business and industry know exactly what foundational skills they need for a productive workforce. Individuals understand what skills are required by employers and how to prepare themselves for success, and economic developers use these reporting tools to market the quality of their workforce.
We are losing our graduates and skilled employees to other states because of higher paying jobs and opportunities. If we are not proactive, in the future we may find the only people left here are those who don’t want to work.
According to information from the Mississippi Economic Council, the state of Mississippi is losing 50 percent of its college graduating seniors each year to other states. Our smartest and brightest are leaving the county for “greener pasture.” You will find this true throughout the State of Mississippi. It is a “Brain Drain.”
The Simpson County Development Foundation, Co-Lin and our local schools see the value in the process of developing jobs skills. We must have an educated, skilled workforce that is equipped with all the qualities employers are seeking in order to attract business and industry and to keep our young people here.
“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” Kofi Annan
