WIF Grantee Summary
West Central Job Partnership
Project Name: Oh-Penn Interstate Region Pathways to Competitiveness
Mission:
Location:
The Pathways to Competitiveness project will address the acute and
critical manufacturing skills shortages created by manufacturing
growth, baby boomer retirement, and an insufficient talent pipeline in
the Oh-Penn Interstate Region. The project will create a talent pipeline
for manufacturing careers, which will result in: increased enrollment in
manufacturing career pathway programs and attainment of nationally
recognized credentials; increased employment and positive earnings
outcomes for individuals; increased competitiveness for employers; and
a sustainable framework to continue to address manufacturing talent
needs in the future.
Initiative Goals:



Build on the Nation’s first Interstate Region to create stronger
cooperation and alignment across state lines, programs, and
funding streams, to achieve improved efficiencies and better
results for job seekers and employers alike
Create a robust sector strategy that aligns employment and
training services with the critical skill needs of regional
manufacturers
Build out manufacturing career pathways
Approach:
New Castle, PA
Grant Award Amount:
$6,000,000
Areas Served:
Lawrence and Mercer
Counties in PA;
Trumbull, Mahoning,
and Columbiana
Counties in OH
Innovation Focus Area:
Sector Strategies
Talent Pipelines
Cross-Program Cooperation
Target Population Served:
The unemployed, the
under-employed, and
youth entering into
career pathways
Beginning in Fall 2012, a cross-state consortium of local workforce
investment boards will implement the Pathways to Competitiveness
project over a 40-month period, in 5 counties across Ohio and western
Target Industries Engaged:
Pennsylvania. Embracing the concept of “the whole is greater than the
Manufacturing
sum of its parts,” this groundbreaking interstate collaboration of
workforce development, economic development, and education partners
Partners:
creates a powerful force for betterment of the area and its citizens.
National Association of
Already the Interstate Region has built a strong foundation of crossManufacturers
border collaboration, made possible in part by a Department of Labor
(NAM),Workforce
Regional Innovation Grant and a Wal-Mart Foundation grant. This effort
Investment Boards,
will now be continued and crystallized with the support of this grant.
community colleges,
unions, employers,
Given that manufacturing represents nearly 11% of total employment in
apprenticeship sponsors,
the Oh-Penn region and generates $2.66 billion in total earnings
high school guidance
annually, it is of critical importance to immediately address the growing
counselors, American
shortages in skilled workers that area manufacturers are facing. The
Job Centers, sector
Pathways to Competitiveness project will begin to address this shortage
partners (industry
through the following activities:
organizations)
1. Promote nationally-recognized assessments , credentials, and
career pathways to employers and job seekers
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WIF Grantee Summary
2. Replicate successful pipeline development activities
3. Create more opportunities for professional development and
industry exposure
4. Increase the availability of hands-on learning (for manufacturing
job skills)
5. Integrate sector partnerships
6. Conduct a career pathways Gap Analysis
7. Improve and align programs to fill career pathways gaps
8. Integrate workforce systems to share information
As a result of these activities, the region will see measurable
improvements in employment outcomes for both job seekers and
manufacturers (evidenced through Workforce Investment Act (WIA)
common measures), greater efficiency in the delivery of public
workforce system services, and stronger cooperation among partners
and funding streams.
Evaluation Type:
Quasi-Experimental
People Served:
18,600
Contact:
Samuel Giannetti,
Executive Director,
West Central Job
Partnership
samg@wcjp.org
www.ohpenn.org
Stay Connected:
Web Link to Full Proposal:
If you are interested in learning more about this grant and following its
progress then visit: https://innovation.workforce3one.org/.
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