“Manufacturing group develops assessment for job seekers” |
| Manufacturing group develops assessment for job seekers Posted: 24 Sep 2010 09:19 PM PDT Credit: EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH Michael Gray (top), of ECPI College of Technology, was among the first to take a skills assessment test at the ECPI Moorefield campus.
By JOHN REID BLACKWELL | TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Manufacturing has taken a hit in the economic downturn, but jobs in the industry will be available in the coming years. That's because thousands of manufacturing workers are approaching retirement age, according to the Virginia Manufacturers Association. More than 40,000 jobs could open up in the next four to five years. One big problem is finding workers who have the right training to fill those jobs, the trade association says. "We have to have that pipeline full of people, ready to go," said Sheryl Bryan, executive director of the work-force development division of the trade association. The trade group has partnered with more than a dozen manufacturers in Virginia to start an assessment program aimed at preparing workers for manufacturing jobs that require advanced technical skills. The group, called the Virginia Council on Advanced Technology Skills, includes manufacturing companies such as Philip Morris USA, Micron Technology Inc. and Boehringer Ingelheim Chemicals. The assessment determines what skills a prospective employee has on a certification scale developed by the industry group. The goal is to be able to match workers with the right skills for employers that have job openings. "There are [job] opportunities out there that employers have struggled to fill because they can't find the individuals within the existing pipeline with the right skill sets," said Bryan, who is a former manufacturing plant manager. The first assessment center in Virginia opened this week at the ECPI College of Technology campus in Chesterfield County. Six students, along with several instructors, became the first on the campus to take the three-hour assessment that measures skills in areas such as math, spatial reasoning and problem solving. Paul Nussbaum, director of education at the ECPI campus, said the assessments can help students learn what skills they need to work on. "We view it as a résumé line item that will increase their hireability and increase their salary when they are hired," he said. Among the students taking the assessment was Heith Treglown, a Chesterfield resident who has worked as an automotive technician. Treglown, 40, who owns an ice cream shop, said he wants to pursue work in high-tech manufacturing, especially in an emerging energy-related field such as solar panel or wind power components manufacturing. Despite the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Virginia during the downturn, Treglown sees it as a viable career option for someone who is willing to pursue the right skills, he said. "Just like with farming, it seems like [manufacturing] has gone down, but it's the efficiency that has gone up," he said. "We just don't need as many people doing the work, but our manufacturing capacity is as high as it has ever been. That's why there is a need for the more technical roles, the people who can operate and repair the equipment." The manufacturers group already has conducted assessments of about 650 people across the state, some of them at existing factories and some of them dislocated workers from plants that were closed, Bryan said. Other assessments were conducted at plant sites, but the assessment center at the Chesterfield ECPI campus on Moorefield Park Drive is the first of six that are planned around the state. The group hopes to open a second center in Virginia Beach this year, Bryan said. Taking the assessment has proven helpful to John Earle, who was laid off as an equipment technician at the Qimonda computer chip factory in eastern Henrico County in early 2009 shortly before the plant closed after the company declared bankruptcy. Earle, 51, who has worked in manufacturing for 20 years, took the assessment at a job fair at Virginia Commonwealth University a few months later. He did so well that the manufacturers group hired him temporarily to help teach other dislocated workers who wanted to improve their assessment scores. Earle said the assessment also helped him get a job as a technical writer at the Micron Technology computer chip plant in Manassas. "I think the certification is valuable because it is transferable," he said. "It covers a lot of areas. Some people have the mind-set that manufacturing work is just pressing a button, but it is much more than that."
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