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workforce pipeline

Oct 31, 2024

Mind the gap

Margaret Abrams was studying engineering at Liberty University when she came across an online job advertisement from Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls Industries. HII, Virginia’s largest industrial employer, was offering a $2,500 signing bonus to job candidates who successfully completed a 16-week computer numerical control training at the Navy’s Advanced Training in Defense Manufa[...]

Apr 29, 2024

Chips ahoy

Finally, the world is catching up with Virginia Tech’s semiconductor curriculum. Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering started a chip-scale integration major in 2016, but it wasn’t exactly high profile when Sheena Deivasigamani arrived at Virginia Tech as a first-year engineering student in 2019. Chip-scale integration wasn’t even on Deivasigamani’s radar. Tech was t[...]

Nov 29, 2023

Mining for talent

At the end of October, United Way of Southwest Virginia broke ground on its $25 million project to convert a former Kmart store in Abingdon into a regional workforce development and child care hub. It’s an attempt to address the region’s workforce shortage, one of the most pressing issues among area employers. “There’s a lot […]

Students in Virginia Tech's College of Engineering fabricate semiconductors in a clean lab. Photo by Luke Hayes, courtesy Virginia Tech
Apr 21, 2023

Va. launching semiconductor workforce initiative

The commonwealth is launching a Virginia Alliance for Semiconductor Technology to foster a semiconductor industry workforce, funding its establishment with a $3.3 million Growth and Opportunity for Virginia (GO Virginia) grant. Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the initiative Friday. In March, GO Virginia announced the $3.3 million grant to the program, then called the Virginia Nanotechnology [&hellip[...]

Tom Barkin speaks at the 2023 Investing in Rural America conference in Roanoke. Photo courtesy Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Apr 12, 2023

Innovation, capital key to rural growth, Barkin and Warner say

There’s hope for economic growth in rural areas despite their challenges, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President and CEO Tom Barkin and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said Wednesday during the Fed’s 2023 Investing in Rural America conference in Roanoke. Rural areas could overcome economic development challenges, particularly housing shortages and lack of broadband access, with innovation, [...]

Friendship staff assist a rehab patient. Photo courtesy Friendship
Dec 22, 2022

Va. nursing homes, assisted living facilities struggle with staffing

Virginia’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities continue to struggle with staffing shortages, according to a Virginia Health Care Association-Virginia Center for Assisted Living survey released in December. Of 154 long-term care providers who responded to the survey, 86% said their workforce situation worsened in 2022 compared with 2020, an increase of five percentage points [&hellip[...]

Hailey Graham, 17, climbs onto a giant articulated dump truck during Branch Group’s G.I.R.L. Construction Experience. Photo by Don Petersen
Nov 29, 2022

Branch builds career pipeline for girls

Women made up about 11% of the construction workforce in 2021, but that doesn’t mean they were all on site wearing a hard hat. That percentage includes women in office and administrative roles, positions more traditionally filled by females, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. And so, many recruiters see women as an […]

Virginia Commonwealth University student Chadwick Davilsaint worked a paid summer internship at The Conciliation Lab, a theater in Richmond. Photo by Shandell Taylor
Oct 28, 2022

A step up the ladder

Internships often help college students learn what they want to do as a profession by expanding their horizons, providing on-the-job experience or helping them change paths to follow a new passion. For instance, an internship helped Virginia Commonwealth University student Oscar Kemp discover that his interest in domestic social work applied just as well to […]

Owen Swinney completed the Solar Workforce Accelerator program in July, earning credit hours toward an associate degree. Photo by Earl Neikirk
Aug 29, 2022

Accelerating the solar workforce

When local school systems decided to add solar arrays to their buildings, regional environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices and other members of the Solar Workgroup of Southwest Virginia counted it as a victory in their six-year efforts to develop a renewable energy cluster in Virginia’s coalfield counties. In January, Southwest Virginia Community College and Mountain Empire […]

University of Virginia Rotunda and Lawn. Photo courtesy University of Virginia
Aug 19, 2022

U.Va. program guarantees job interviews for certificate students

The University of Virginia is partnering with companies to guarantee job interviews for some certificate students. The program comes from an agreement between U.Va’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, which offers part-time, online programs, and various employers. It is designed to improve the workforce pipeline for in-demand fields, the university said in a news […]

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