St. Louis’ Economic Future Requires a Lot More Trained Workers
Date Posted: May 4, 2023
Posted In: News,
From St. Louis Public Radio: The St. Louis region has staked a significant portion of its future economic development on technologies and industries that are still emerging.
To make this bet on things like geospatial, advanced manufacturing and agtech successful, the region will need many more workers ready to enter those fields when employers come calling.
“We want the talent pipeline to be so rich and robust that they have hundreds of candidates applying for these open opportunities,” said Rung for Women President Leslie Gill.
Her organization trains women in the St. Louis region who want to transition careers into sectors like geospatial, technology and advanced manufacturing.
To Gill, now is the time to expand these kinds of workforce development options, especially before things like the new National Geospatial Intelligence Agency campus and Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center open in north St. Louis in the coming years.
“So that NGA is like, ‘Man, St. Louis was ready,’” she said. “They had people who were knocking on our door for these jobs, they were well trained and interested in the jobs that we had available.”
The same sentiment applies to the other industries St. Louis is betting its future on, she added.
With that in mind, the region is pouring resources into the organizations and institutions that can quickly build up the workforce it will need.