Two local economic leaders are attending training sessions in Washington D.C. and hoping to implement a new method of workforce development in the Jacksonville area.
Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corporation president Paul Ellis announced the Jacksonville region is one of 65 employment centers nationwide chosen to develop this new approach.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Federation (USCCF) is paying for Ellis and Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce president Lisa Musch to attend two, three-day training sessions on Talent Pipeline Management. Ellis said the TPM approach has to do with hiring.
“We’re at the lowest unemployment level you can probably get to. Certainly the lowest we’ve ever been at, and that’s true across the country. And many of our employers, if not all of them, are having a hard time filling all of the positions they need to have filled. Sometimes it’s a shortage of any kind of a worker. More often it’s having somebody that’s ready to go to work, trained, and has the right skills. It’s a difficult problem and we haven’t been particularly efficient in solving that until now.”
Ellis said the TPM approach is often driven by employers.
“It isn’t the government telling you what to do or trying to tell you what to do, or other institutions guessing. It also brings them together to define what the positions are.”
For more information about the Talent Pipeline Management approach, local businesses can contact Ellis at (217) 602-8390 or Musch at (217) 245-2174.