OPEN WORKFORCE
Tech training programs rely on experts to steer them away from fields that won’t produce jobs
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Last in a series
The Pittsburgh region is hungry for workers in production roles. In the next 10 years, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development estimates the region will need to fill nearly 7,000 such positions per year because of baby boomers aging out of the workforce.
In areas of production such as welding and machinery, there already are more jobs available than there are workers being placed in them. In 2015, more than 1,000 positions existed. Only 472 were filled.
Technical education centers provide a significant chunk of the labor for these positions. The Pittsburgh Technical College, one of dozens of technical schools in the area, educates more than 2,000 students any given year.
Pittsburgh-area technical programs say they’re working to stay nimble and in touch with the employers who might give jobs to their graduates. If that means axing a popular program on raising frogs because no one is finding much work from it, well, so be it.
An industry pipeline
The Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Career and Technical Education Program traces its roots to the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, which encouraged the federal government to provide states with grants for vocational training. In Pittsburgh, the Connelly Trade school was built in the 1920s as part of the public school network.
The program was built with three core tracks of study: culinary arts, health care, and business/finance. “Those were some of the fastest growing occupations,” said Angela Mike, the program’s director.
Now there are 15 fields, ranging from auto body repair to computer-assisted design. About 500 high school students participate each year, and up to 3,000 in the district take courses such as robotics, construction and personal finance.
“We added a multimedia production program at Brashear High School about three years ago, based on employer needs
and how things have changed around coding,” Ms. Mike said. “And we also added an entertainment technology program at [University Prep] because of the focus of the movie industry in Pittsburgh.”
A combination of state guidance and the program’s advisory board — comprising local business leaders — helps the curriculum keep pace with shifts in local industries.
“All of our programs are high-priority occupations, and that’s deemed by the state,” Ms. Mike said. “You’re not allowed to open up any career and technical program that is not for a high-priority occupation, and then we also have added additional programs based on regional needs and definitely student interest.”
The advisory board model is replicated at the Pittsburgh Technical College, which has a series of boards that are cumulatively 3,000 members strong. They’re a mesh of loyal employers, industry leaders and the supervisors at internships.
Advice from these boards couldspell the doom of a program deemed out of step with regional workforce trends or the birth of a programviewed as necessary.
“If we find a program that we have has reached the end of its life, if that program is not needed anymore, we’re not going to graduate students without having a home to go to, without some sort of job,” said Jeff Belsky, the college’s vice president for strategic initiatives.
According to Mr. Belsky, the school began investigating whether to start wind and solar programs a few years ago, but advisory boards cautioned against it. “[They] told us that, although in the next 510 years these programs may be required, the time is not desirable right now,” he wrote in an email.
Technical programs also worry about how to prepare students for a lifetime of work, as opposed to filling a short-term need that might disappearin a few years.
The PTC’s industrial instrumentation program — a nine-month certificate in oil and gas electronics — was created with jobs in the energy industry in mind, but teaches skills in advanced electronics and electronic circuitry that are adaptable to manufacturing positions.
The whole worker
The Economist Intelligence Unit — a group related to The Economist magazine that provides risk and industry analysis — conducted a study of employers in 2014 that found 75 percent viewed critical thinking skillsas most important.
“Technical skills associated with the job” ranked fourth out of 11 categories, after communication skills and collaborative ability.
Educators and industry leaders increasingly say they will accept workers who may not be completely learned in the prerequisite technical skills if those workers display skills like leadership, communication, and the ability to work well in a team.
The Trade Institute of Pittsburgh graduates almost 100 students each year from its Homewood program, many of whom were previously convicted for a crime and are looking to turn their lives around.
It uses the hands-on nature of an apprenticeship program to teach trades such as brick and block masonry or general labor. Those industries may experience “large demand spikes” in the next few years, the Allegheny Conference projected, with brick masonry and labor industries expected to experience growth at a rate faster than 4.2 percent.
Students glide along the work floor, their time spent on projects that get them acclimated to the technical aspects of jobs they’re eyeing.
“In 10 weeks, we can get them a living wage job,” said Kit Mueller, who handles strategicand community developmentfor the program.
The program has graduated over 300 people since it launched 2009, according to its website. The organization estimates it has saved taxpayers $6 million by redirecting individuals who may have been reincarceratedinto the workforce.
What makes the program work, Mr. Mueller argues, is that it addresses all of a student’s employment needs — meaning it educates them in technical skills as well as soft skills.
For example, the first nine weeks include life skills lessons like how to work in a team or workplace etiquette, said Stephen Shelton, the program’s founder.
“You can’t master anything in 10 weeks,” Mr. Shelton said, referring to trades. “But what we can do is help them get their heads screwed on straight, make sure they’re going to show up to work on time.”