Workforce Development

The money will help Montana CDC create and sustain jobs in Montana as part of a national campaign to support community businesses in underserved communities.

Too many American workers are ill-prepared for jobs that will provide a path to the middle class.

This is a bipartisan effort. We are working together to address veteran unemployment. This was before the Heroes Act was passed, and now gives employers and private business an extra incentive to hire qualified veterans. Let’s continue this type of creative work. Let’s get innovative. Let’s go to work, America!

Research by The Hamilton Project shows that over the past four decades the annual earnings of the median man with only a high school diploma have declined by 46 percent. Not since this country has maintained records has such a large group of Americans experienced a similar prolonged period of declining real earnings.

Helmets to Hardhats connects veterans into promising careers in the construction industry.

One company that has experience customizing employment for a wider range of clients is Montana-based Griffin-Hammis Associates, which, among other services, develops profiles of people with disabilities and surveys the needs of a range of employers in the community to come up with good matches.

The program, which Mr. Obama unveiled during a visit to a lighting manufacturer here, would seek to marry private companies with colleges and universities in a bid to encourage students to focus on science, technology, engineering and math degrees.

"We need to move aggressively to competency-based education" based on mastery of skills at the student’s own pace, rather than on an accumulation of credit hours."

Customized Employment (CE) is a process that builds upon the foundation of Supported Employment.

Now that the program is underway, Kotynski said the goal in the next year is to expand the program to C.M. Russell High School and also work with the local Chamber of Commerce to find more companies looking to hire individuals with readiness certificates and figure out what levels a person needs to score on the WorkKeys test to be considered for certain positions.