Prepare residents for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
It’s one of four priorities in the REACH 2030 strategic plan, essential not just for growing more quality jobs but also for ensuring the region’s residents have pathways into those jobs — a core part of our vision for a Central Coast where current and future generations have the opportunity to thrive.
Vital collaboration across education, government and business has been building over the last year and is now gelling around the findings in a new report on the region’s talent landscape across key growing industries.
“This report underscores the need for regional action on aligning industry, education and workforce development providers across our two counties to develop the robust talent pipeline these industries need to grow and create quality jobs,” REACH President/CEO Melissa James said. “By building on and scaling efforts already underway, we can make the region more competitive for state, federal and private investment while creating more opportunities for the region’s residents.”
Among a host of recommendations, the report — developed by fellows and affiliates of the Brookings Institution and and similar policy research groups — surfaced two key findings:
- The need for a streamlined, employer-centric approach to aggregating and addressing talent needs across a fragmented industry and workforce development landscape.
- The region’s ripe opportunity in precision manufacturing and autonomous systems, cutting across the common technical skills and knowledge at the heart of regional strengths in tech, aerospace and manufacturing, with applications for other regional industries such as cleantech.
We look forward to sharing more about this work in months to come. For now, find the full report here and a closer look at the region’s precision manufacturing industry here.
