innovate arkansas

Arkansas has plenty of workers for new industries if those workers can be equipped with the necessary skills, the deputy director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission told attendees at Thursday's Breakthrough Solutions Conference in Little Rock. 

Randy Zook, AEDC's deputy director, spoke during a session on how to prepare Arkansas' workforce for 21^st Century jobs. He gave an overview of the state's ongoing efforts and areas where improvement is needed.

About 5 percent of the state's workforce is unemployed, Zook said. While that is just below the national average, it equates to about 75,000 workers without jobs.

Arkansas' workforce participation rate, at 60 percent, is below the national average of 65 percent. In addition, 20 percent of the workforce is "underemployed," or working for less that $10 an hour.

Taking all of these factors into consideration, Zook said about 340,000 people in Arkansas are able to work but are underemployed, unskilled or unwilling.

"That's a daunting number," he said. "It gives you some sense of the magnitude of the challenge."

Adding to workforce woes was Thursday's announcement from Cargill Value Added Meats that it will not rebuild its Booneville meat processing plant, which was destroyed by fire on Easter Sunday. The fire left 800 workers displaced.

But Zook said one positive aspect of the state's workforce situation is that plenty of workers are available for new industries if they can be equipped with the necessary skills.

Among other workforce programs in the state, the Career Readiness Certificate is a program started last year that has assessed about 2,500 people, with 90 percent of those earning the certificate.

"We're thrilled with the results of this program," Zook said.

The AEDC is now beginning to build up workforce data that it can share with industries interested in locating here.

"We're beginning to be able to demonstrate that we have people with the skills that they need," Zook said.

A Smart Core

While the manufacturing industry still dominates the state's economic landscape, there is an ongoing collaborative effort to bring per capita income in line with the national average by moving toward a more knowledge-based economy.

Zook said another step in the right direction is the Department of Education's implementation of Smart Core curriculum, which requires students to take more math and science courses to graduate high school.

But parents can allow their children to opt out of the program, which Zook said puts them at a major disadvantage. He said he would like to see the curriculum become mandatory.

"I hope the next legislative session will tackle that," Zook said.

The state should also work to offer more career and technical education programs, he said.

"We basically threw in the towel in the early to mid-'90's," Zook said.

The majority of vocational and technical schools were converted into community colleges, he said, leaving only three in the state despite a significant demand for workers with those skills.

Clevon Young, executive director of the Arkansas Human Development Commission, also spoke about the various programs that the commission offers. One is the National Farmworker Jobs Program, which provides training, placement and other services to seasonal agricultural workers.

"We recruit all of our applicants - we go to the communities where they are - and we provide all the costs of the training," Young said.

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