Nancy Dischinat, Executive Director, Lehigh Valley Workforce Development Board Inc.,
Just a few months ago,
representatives from the Lehigh Valley’s educational institutions, major
employers, and economic development and workforce agencies gathered in the
meeting room of the Lehigh Valley Workforce Development Board (LVWDB), rolled
up their sleeves, and got to work.
This unprecedented partnership
marked the inaugural meeting of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development
Corporation (LVEDC) Education and Talent Supply Council, a group of
stakeholders from various entities all sharing the same goal: developing
current workforce supply and demand data, and creating and executing regional
strategies that help maintain a workforce and talent supply.
“The availability of trained
workers is now the number one factor driving company locations, even more so
than the total operating costs,” said Don Cunningham, President and CEO of
LVEDC. “The regions that best solve the talent supply equations are the ones
that will score the big wins in economic development competition.”
In addition to LVEDC and the LVWDB,
this council includes representatives from the Lehigh Valley’s wide array of
educational institutions including research universities, liberal arts
colleges, community colleges, school districts and career and technological
schools, as well as major regional employers like Ocean Spray, Mack Trucks, and
Olympus Corp.
Bringing these entities together to
better connect the Lehigh Valley’s labor supply and demand is such an
innovative concept, it’s beginning to develop interest statewide as a potential
model to be emulated. Cunningham and Northampton
Community College President Mark Erickson, who chairs the council, were invited
to Harrisburg in September to testify about the effort before the Pennsylvania House
Subcommittee on Technical Education and Career Readiness.
“The first step in understanding
the gap between the education talent supply and workforce needs of employers is
to gather accurate and timely data, and to code that data in a way that is
consistent across institutions,” Erickson said during his testimony. “The
second, and most critical step, is to assess potential gaps, and ultimately
assure alignment with the workforce needs of the region we serve.”
The council has begun to identify
areas of focus to prioritize, discussing such topics as establishing
internships, standardizing terminology in job descriptions to ensure more
candidates are found, testing and verifying workforce data, and creating more
intensive employer engagement. The
objective is to have each Lehigh Valley college and school provide information
on the pipeline of talent preparing to enter the local labor market.
Developing data-driven, innovative
and cost-effective workforce strategies has always been a priority for both LVWDB
and LVEDC. That why we’ve partnered on the formation of the Education and
Talent Supply Council, which itself stems from a Workforce and Economic
Development Strategic Plan both organizations commissioned last year from
Oxford Economics.
Understanding labor supply is only
half of the battle. The other half is
understanding the specific labor needs of Lehigh Valley businesses. The goal is to make sure the region is
supplying the right number of workers, with the proper skills demanded by
present and future companies. This is no
easy task, but we have now begun to put into place a process that we believe
can be successful.
