The Skills Foundation of Mississippi was recently joined by Lt. Governor Tate Reeves, members of the business community, educators, and career technical students at Hinds Community College in Pearl to launch a new tool aimed at measuring strategic workforce training growth for Mississippi. Economic growth in a high-tech economy has resulted in high demand for specific skills across multiple sectors. To help meet this demand, more people must be trained with these skills.
Curnis Upkins, MS Hospital Association, and Jay Moon, MS Manufacturers Association, joined Lt. Governor Reeves in making remarks. Both Upkins and Moon serve as Skills Foundation Board members and echoed Lt. Governor Reeves’ comments about the importance of strategic, measured workforce training becoming a top educational priority for Mississippi.
Akin to stock market indices, The Skills Index is an indicator of growth in strategic training and not a comprehensive measure of job training in Mississippi. It tallies graduates from a select list of 385 community college programs and 43 university programs across the state which provide education and training for Mississippi’s priority sectors: manufacturing, healthcare, information technology, energy, and logistics.
The Skills Foundation adopts the mantra “what gets measured gets done”. The Skills Index will provide just that type of measurement for the needed growth in specific training programs output. Mississippi has seen substantial growth in the past 10 years in skills training, but with demand for skilled jobs so great, accelerated growth is needed.