Employers know what they need

As part of her comprehensive jobs plan, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo recently announced the 21 recipients of planning grants available through Real Jobs Rhode Island. As CEO of the Rhode Island Marine Trades Association, a trade organization that represents over 300 Ocean State businesses in the recreational boating industry, I applaud Real Jobs R.I. for what I see as its winning feature: putting employers at the center of this jobs initiative.

Real Jobs R.I. gives businesses a stronger voice in determining how the state supports training, hiring, and filling our skills gaps. Rather than having government come to businesses with a solution – and risk supporting training programs that often lag behind the needs of businesses – Real Jobs R.I. acknowledges that businesses know best. They know what skills their employees need, who they need to hire, and how the state can provide appropriate support and funding.

Several years ago, with support from the Governor’s Workforce Board, we worked alongside our member companies to identify the hiring and skills-gap challenges these companies faced, and together we created a strategy: to attract more young and entry-level workers, replace the graying workforce and cross-train the current workforce.

Today, RIMTA has programs that are market and demand driven – and the end result is a stronger workforce for the state’s marine trades and more opportunity for Rhode Islanders in search of employment. We have been successful because we operated from an essential truth: when it comes to workforce-development efforts, employers need to lead the discussion from the start.

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RIMTA and 15 of our sector’s key employers and training providers working in composites have formed a new partnership. Thanks to the receipt of nearly $25,000 in seed funding from Real Jobs R.I., we now have an opportunity to launch a similar workforce-development strategy for the state’s composites sector.

We need to train the next generation of workers to strengthen our state’s composites sector, and Real Jobs R.I. is helping us to do just that. •

Wendy Mackie is CEO of the Rhode Island Marine Trades Association.

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