Tech skills gap target of public-private partnership

A public-private partnership announced June 8 seeks to enhance and expand training to fill the largest number of open manufacturing jobs in states along the automotive corridor, according to a news release issed by the National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS). 

Joining NIMS in the effort are Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT)—a new national manufacturing innovation insitute—and Indiana-based Ivy Tech Community College, the nation's largest, singly accredited statewide community college system. The goal of the partnership is to prepare a new industrial technology maintenance workforce, which NIMS credits with driving the performance and improvement of high-tech manufacturing and about 60 percent of the job growth from 2011 to 2014 in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.  

"Manufacturing enterprises—especially those serving the defense and transportation sectors—continue to embrace new light weight metals and technologies, adding advanced technical requirements to critical jobs already going unfilled because workers do not have the required skills," said Larry Brown, LIFT's executive director.  "This is an unprecedented partnership among our new manufacturing innovation institute, a national credentialing body (NIMS) and a premier statewide community college system collaborating to address the workforce needs of our industry partners and their supply chains." 

With nearly 39,000 open positions requiring the right set of industrial technology maintenance skills, NIMS noted that "workers will have to understand and be confident in using the latest advanced technologies" if they hope to support the rapid deployment of new lightweight technologies being developed by LIFT. 

The initiative will focus on building high-quality training programs by:

• Rolling out the first-ever industry standards for educating and training the industrial technology maintenance workforce;
• Training instructors from community colleges across the entire region; and
• Equipping a competent workforce with the knowledge, skills and credentials they need to enter into and advance in the field.