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Work-force development efforts expand in south-central Idaho

A cooperative effort to improve work-force development in south-central Idaho is starting to pay off, and local businesses can take advantage of the benefits.

The state of Idaho granted $55,000 to the College of Southern Idaho, the South Central Idaho Works! Board and the Idaho Department of Labor last September to help fund a job-market survey and to create the ACT Center at CSI. The survey results are now being used to determine how the ACT Center can help potential employees learn vital business skills and help businesses train current employees for advancement.

By Megan Hinds
Times-News writer

http://www.magicvalley.com/news/business/index.asp?StoryID=4290

The survey was sent to 945 south-central Idaho businesses in eight sectors — professional, education, construction, retail, health care, manufacturing, agriculture and food service fields — and 301 responses were used to tabulate survey results.

Results were presented Jan. 13 to the South Central Idaho Works! Board by Greg Rogers, the Labor Department’s regional labor economist for south-central Idaho. The survey identified several areas of concern regarding employment, focusing on the health care and service sectors.

Those sectors are especially dependent on the education and job training of applicants and employees, Rogers said. Also, while the health care field is chronically short of workers, the service sector — characterized by low wages and few benefits — continues to grow.

In south-central Idaho, 80 percent of workers in the service industry receive job training, which Rogers said makes the high rate of turnover costly.

The survey also indicated that hiring employees with the ability to communicate well with supervisors, customers and other employees was important to employers across the board.

"Employers said they look to hire people with interpersonal skills," Rogers said. "They need someone who can understand orders and work without constant supervision. (These skills) are also needed for promotion."

Developing skills like those through outside training is where the ACT Center comes in, said Rebecca Sommer, ACT marketing specialist for CSI. The center, funded by the state grant, offers more than 2,500 online courses, including computer basics, professional development, information technology, industrial technology and safety skills. The average course costs $125.

The survey results will help the ACT Center market the courses to local businesses, said DeVere Burton, CSI dean of technical education. With the survey, CSI and the Labor Department now have evidence that businesses consider job training an integral part of their company’s success, Burton said.

The ACT Center can provide cost-effective training for employees of local businesses, Rogers said.

"We found that many businesses will send their employees to a training seminar out of town," Rogers said. "But if they took advantage of the ACT training, they could save the travel and hotel/motel expenses because the workers can take the (ACT) courses online. They can get the same level of training" in Magic Valley.

Times-News business writer Megan Hinds can be reached at 735-3238 or [email protected].

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