Southwestern Illinois Identifies Workforce Development Goals

In 2004, a study was released that examined the key challenges affecting the economic and workforce development growth for seven key counties in southwestern Illinois. The study, named The 21 st Century Workforce, Southwestern Illinois, was commissioned by the Madison-Bond Workforce Investment Board (MBWB) and the Mid America Workforce Investment Board (MAWIB).

This study was the first step in an initiative to help develop an economy and workforce that meets the needs of this region’s citizens. The goal of the study was not to prescribe specific actions, but rather to point out promising paths and ideas that may be of interest to workforce boards and other leaders in the seven counties. In all, the study identified 10 key challenges throughout the region. Based on these challenges and the desire of area leaders to address them, the 10 challenges were divided into two key areas based on basic issues underlying each challenge. The two key areas of the study encompass supporting economic development and connecting education and business. Two champions are leading a team for each of the key areas to better utilize existing resources, identify new resources, and develop creative solutions including partnerships as well as modifying and creating programs in the region.

More specifically, the focus of the key area of supporting economic development is on promoting entrepreneurs in southwestern Illinois and concentrate on strengthening existing business, addressing a growing shortage of healthcare professionals, and reducing regional “brain drain” and actively encouraging professionalism to return to the area. Across the U.S. and especially in southwestern Illinois, there has been a shift from industrial structure toward a knowledge-based economy. Within the next decade, virtually all of the projected services occupations fall into either the information technology or healthcare fields. The majority of these jobs require some kind of post-secondary education.

Connecting education and business is also an important facet to this study. Research from across the U.S. has shown that collaboration between businesses and education can help raise graduation rates and PSAE performance as well as increase the percentage of students who take the ACT exam. Job training is also very important for the proper development of America ’s workforce. The largest share of job growth expected in the U.S. economy this decade will come in occupations where on-the-job-training is a primary means of developing the required workplace qualifications. Because of this, the study was aimed at encouraging the One-Stops and community colleges to become pro-active in meeting training and other workforce needs of employers in southwestern Illinois, aligning education, training, and career preparation with southwestern Illinois’ major economic clusters and those of the greater St. Louis region, and enhancing content and broadening the scope of the One-Stops’ market research.

An important goal of connecting education and business is to prepare youth for the workforce. Twenty-three southwestern Illinois high schools have already made successful efforts to reduce their dropout rates, and 15 area high schools experienced reversals since the year 2000. The study recommends that reducing high school drop out rates and raising graduation rates should be a main focus, along with ensuring full compliance with ISBE procedures for accurately recording drop out and graduation rates in all area high schools, and improving the academic performance of all southwestern Illinois primary and secondary students as measured by Illinois standardized tests, but also emphasizing teamwork, customer service, and other “soft” skills.

Strengthening career guidance has also been an important goal and refers to enhancing the quality of career and guidance counseling in all public high schools, the One-Stops, and the community colleges, along with dramatically improving the quality, quantity and attractiveness of vocational high school curricula. This is important both to prepare non-college bound students for productive places in the workforce as well as to provide learning experiences for students who find conventional academic environments ill-suited to their learning styles or interests. One challenge to workforce development is to anticipate future occupational losses, to shy away from encouraging entrant workers into these fields, and to be prepared to assist incumbent workers to retain and re-skill themselves for employment in the jobs of tomorrow.

Great strides have been taken since the study was first released. Workforce 21 has, and will continue, to align resources from numerous fields including educators, labor groups, elected officials, business leaders, organizational leaders, and concerned citizens. The challenges identified in the study will continue to be addressed in order to build a well-prepared future workforce.
If you are interested in participating on one of the two area task forces, please contact Linda Odle at lodle@mcetd.org. You can also help by informing your constituents of this research and Workforce 21.