Like many other states, California is facing a shortage in skilled workers. Because many states fail to offer support for training in areas like manufacturing, technology, and healthcare, there simply aren’t enough qualified candidates to fill the labor gap in these industries. Often, states rely on private facilities or institutions to provide training in those industries that are lacking employees. In some cases, they turn to foreign workers rather than developing their own residents’ skills.
How bad is California’s shortage of skilled workers?
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, “If recent trends continue, California is likely to face a shortage of workers with some college education but less than a bachelor’s degree by 2025.” Not only that, but “the future gap among ‘some college’ educated workers may be as high as 1.5 million — even larger than the projected one-million-worker shortage of college graduates.”
What’s the good news?
Despite the shortage, once employees are in the skilled labor workforce, there is relatively low turnover compared to other industries. Businesses need to keep this in mind when they’re choosing an area to expand their business. By choosing an area that offers access to a skilled and educated workforce, businesses are sure to thrive despite the shortage.
Shasta County Workforce Development and Training Programs
In Shasta County, residents have access to numerous colleges and universities that produce motivated and skilled future employees. In fact, the average civilian labor force in 2016 consisted of 74,700 workers. These educated and skilled workers can do well in Shasta. On top of that, the Shasta Economic Development Corporation hard at work creating new job training opportunities in Redding to further develop the local workforce.
The Shasta Region can benefit from its SMART Business Resource center — a center that provides services to both those in the local business community and those seeking a job in the area. Whether it’s someone looking for a job or a company looking for employees to help grow their business, SMART can help. One of the biggest aspects of growing a business is ensuring employees are receiving the right training. And with SMART, businesses can receive assistance paying for training, and they can even benefit from online training programs for employees. Overall, SMART can help provide local Shasta businesses with the employees and resources they need to meet the needs of their growing business.
Along with SMART, the Center for Economic and Workforce Development (EWD) program at Shasta college has even more resources to offer. From courses and programs to much-needed services, individuals and the businesses in Shasta can benefit from learning more about career development and industry training.
The Shasta County workforce has endless resources to offer the local business community. Whether it’s helping train existing employees or giving future employees the tools they need to succeed, the local business community will have the employees they need to help their business grow. Even though there is a shortage in skilled workers in California as a whole, Shasta is providing the services needed to grow the local workforce.