Skilled workforce needed

Oklahoma City has an opportunity to grow our economy by increasing our number of skilled workers. Most of us know about the STEM-related shortage, but we face another workforce gap.

According to a report from the Oklahoma Educated Workforce Initiative, there are an estimated 600,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs nationally and this number is expected to continue to climb. Oklahoma will experience a jump in the number of skilled workers needed by 2020. As a state, we have good training resources in place – if we strengthen those and educate about the growing need for workforce training, we will see economic benefits.

John Ratzenberger, best known as Cliff Clavin from the TV series Cheers, is an advocate of workforce training programs. He is on the national task force on apprenticeships to help reinvigorate the practice of business apprenticeships as a way of reducing unemployment and boosting the economy. Last week, he spoke at the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s annual meeting about the need to bring back trades training in schools, build apprentice programs for returning veterans and support the “reshoring of American companies.”

Read the full article at The Journal Record