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Virginia C apitol C onnections, Fall 2015 11
The Virginia Chamber of Commerce identified improvements
to education and workforce training as the top priority in Blueprint
Virginia, our long-term business plan for the Commonwealth
developed in 2013 with the input of more than 7,000 business and
community leaders. We know that when we strengthen the private
sector voice in state level workforce efforts, we put ourselves on the
path to future prosperity.
Strengthening the private sector voice will require regionally
tailored efforts that use real-time private sector input to equip job
seekers with the right skills for in-demand jobs.
To that end, theVirginia Chamber held a conference on workforce
Oct. 6 in Richmond, featuring remarks from Governor McAuliffe
and from some of Virginia’s largest employers, including a keynote
address from Mike Petters, President and CEO of Huntington Ingalls
Industries, Inc. and Chairman of the Virginia Business Council. I
encourage anyone who is interested in joining the Virginia Chamber
in improving our workforce training programs and in elevating our
many successful regional efforts to participate in our effort.
The conference served as the kickoff for statewide action on the
critically important issue of closing the gap between the training of
our workforce and the needs of employers. Meeting this challenge
will require new thinking in how we organize and manage all levels
of education to create the workforce pipelines for our employment
needs, from upper management and professionals to the middle-skill
workforce.
Barry E. DuVal is President & CEO of the Virginia Chamber
of Commerce.
There is no more critical issue to
address for Virginia’s future success than
aligning workforce training opportunities
with the job market.
As I meet with employers of all sizes
across Virginia, they tell me that they are
able to fill low skill job openings, and they
have the resources and the available talent
pool to recruit qualified candidates for high
skill positions. But where they see a gap,
and sometimes a significant one, is in filling
middle-skills positions that require more
than a high school education, but often experience or certifications
that don’t require a 4-year higher education degree.
A National Skills Coalition analysis confirmed what we have
heard from our membership, which exceeds 22,000 businesses
in Virginia. Middle skill jobs will represent nearly 50 percent of
future job openings, while we have just 40 percent of our workforce
equipped with the right training to step into those jobs.
This is a problem that must be addressed, because we can only be
as successful as a Commonwealth as our workforce allows us to be.
Every successful model for workforce training across the country
includes an active leadership role from the business community. If
we simply guess as to what our future workforce needs will be, or
encourage students to pursue training in skills that they can’t put to
use, we’re doing a disservice to both future employees and to the
businesses that want to hire them.
Building a Demand Driven
Talent Pipeline in Virginia By Barry DuVal
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