Workforce leaders, educators, and lawmakers gathered in Lancaster County on Tuesday to discuss concerns about Pennsylvania\u2019s future workforce and the need to keep more young people living and working in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
The youth workforce development roundtable focused on preparing students for careers as older workers retire and businesses face ongoing labor shortages.<\/p>\n
Rebecca O\u2019Shea with the Pennsylvania Workforce Development Association said investing in younger generations is critical to Pennsylvania\u2019s long-term economic future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need to do is invest in our, our youth population to ensure that kids are staying in Pennsylvania and seeing the career pathways that exist here and seeing the job opportunities that exist here,\u201d O\u2019Shea said.<\/p>\n
Leaders at the event said one of the biggest challenges is exposing students to career opportunities earlier through mentorships, internships, and workforce programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cCareer exposure is incredibly important. You don’t know what you don’t know, so being able to showcase to kids what jobs are available is essential,\u201d O\u2019Shea added.<\/p>\n
Organizers also discussed the role employers play in attracting younger workers and connecting open jobs with available talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an issue on the hiring side as to are your jobs that you’re hiring for actually meeting the talent that is existing and so there is a part of our system that does work with employers and that is the business engagement side of the system,\u201d O\u2019Shea said.<\/p>\n
Speakers said retaining young workers also depends on making Pennsylvania more affordable and appealing for families and young professionals.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Ismail Smith-Wade-El (D-Lancaster) said access to affordable housing and healthcare are major factors influencing where young workers choose to live.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s incumbent upon us as much as it is to fund these programs as to make Pennsylvania where people know they can afford housing and there’s still a hospital within, you know, 30 minutes to one hour of where they live,\u201d Smith-Wade-El said.<\/p>\n
Officials said many young workers are leaving parts of Pennsylvania for states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas in search of lower costs and more opportunities.<\/p>\n
To help address the issue, the Pennsylvania Workforce Development Association is advocating for a $25 million state investment to expand youth career pathway programs across Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Workforce leaders, educators, and lawmakers gathered in Lancaster County on Tuesday to discuss concerns about Pennsylvania\u2019s future workforce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,175,89883,64223,89882],"class_list":["post-203831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-workforce-development","tag-workforce-programs","tag-young-professionals","tag-young-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}