Senator O'Mara's weekly column - “A future for regional manufacturing”

The Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions remain home to numerous, world-class manufacturers that, collectively, form a foundation of manufacturing critical to the short- and long-term strength of the regional, statewide, and national economies.

In early October, the Greater Southern Tier BOCES (GST BOCES), Chemung County Chamber of Commerce, and other sponsors hosted numerous area companies to highlight the fact that good, local jobs are available in manufacturing. This year’s celebration of National Manufacturing Day provided hundreds of regional students from GST BOCES and area school districts a chance to interact with representatives from local industries – and that’s the key.

Many local companies have highlighted the challenge of finding highly trained local workers to fill job openings. It reflects a nationwide concern commonly called the “skills gap.”

The United States Chamber of Commerce has summarized the gap, and the importance of an industry-educational-governmental partnership to address it, this way, “The overarching goal is to create a system that meets the immediate needs of employers today and adequately trains and prepares the workforce for generations to come. [We need to] establish a solid educational foundation for the duration of a student’s participation in the public education structure. If we are going to compete in the global marketplace and develop a solid plan for shaping the workforce development agenda in this country, we must work together and share best practices to make a difference with the skills gap.”

The state Senate created a special Task Force on Workforce Development in 2015, on which I served as a member, to examine this trend in detail. The task force focused on schools-based job training programs and other strategies to develop specific workforce skills for the economies of the future in high-tech manufacturing and other sectors. The annual state budget includes funding for dozens of job training and workforce development initiatives, nearly all of them advocated by the task force. Task Force members put forth a comprehensive legislative package to bolster other ongoing efforts, including legislation to:

Ø encourage high school students to participate in apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship, and career and technical education opportunities;
Ø establish a program to assist veterans in utilizing their military experience to build a civilian resume and gain access to employment;
Ø create a program within our state university system, including community colleges, to work with local businesses and industries to develop work force training programs to provide the skills needed for workers to find jobs in their communities;
Ø expand New York State’s Pathways in Technology Schools (P-TECHs) and Early College High Schools to meet student demand and enhance educational performance; and
Ø increase access to career and tech programs at BOCES.

Looking ahead to the start of a new legislative session in January, we must continue to encourage this critical collaboration between government, education, and private industry.  

We also need to keep taking tax relief, regulatory reform, and other actions, at every level of government, to do what we can to ensure a business climate that helps our manufacturers expand, thrive, and create more good jobs for local workers.

Our ongoing local, state, and federal focus on building and strengthening the manufacturing sector is producing results. It shows every sign of continuing to be successful and, together, it delivers a convincing and hopeful message for the future of regional manufacturing.