‘Skills gap’ between work, education
numbers provided by theschool.
But the training programs that were developed so quickly now are leaving out skills that oil and gas employerssay they need, such as time management, speaking and writing.
The Rand study was based on surveys sent last year in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Respondents included 67 employers in the oil and gas industry, and 87 postsecondary institutions from four-year universities to community colleges to apprenticeships and certificate programs.
The results found 46 percent of employers have no partnership with schools to improve what is being taught. About 55 percent don’t provide any financial support to colleges for workforce development.
“The big challenge here now for employers is to think of how they can take the lead here in providing support to colleges, since they are the direct beneficiary to students,” said Robert Bozick, Rand senior sociologist and co-author ofthe study.
Mr. Bozick, presenting the findings to a conference room of business groups, educators and journalists, credited the ShaleNet program as a prime exampleof how educators and employerscan work together.
A major perk, he said, is that ShaleNet offers stackable credential programs allowing people to take “a bite-size cluster of courses” to get certified in a specific skill. As technology in natural gas and other industries adds and subtracts skills desired by employers, workers can more quickly build toward what would effectively be an associate’s or bachelor’sdegree.
Outside of ShaleNet, few programs offer them. The Rand report found 28 percent ofoil and gas degree programs in the tri-state area have stackablecredentials.
Advisory councils of gas industry employers advise ShaleNet schools on how to adapt their curriculum to a changing market, said Dennis Mills, interim dean of the School of Workforce at Pierpont Community and Technical College in Fairmont, W.Va., one of the ShaleNet schools.
“Now, a lot of the (gas) industry has moved to midstream,” including building pipelines to transport the glut of natural gas from the region to the market, he said. “We’ve been able to do that within a six-month time period to introducesome courses.”
“The colleges are trying to catch up” to employers, he added. “It’s getting much better.”
After hitting a plateau through much of 2015 and 2016, natural gas drilling is on therise again in the Marcellus Shale,an underground formation centered on Western Pennsylvania and reaching into New York, Ohio, West Virginiaand Maryland.
As of the end of September, drillers have surpassed 20 billion cubic feet per day of production, which is up 8 percent from the same time one year ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.