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DEW pushes sector strategies and regional planning to close skills gaps
Summary
Director Stanton described a coordinated 'sector strategies' initiative aligning K–12, technical colleges, higher education and employers to target growth sectors (manufacturing, healthcare, IT, construction, transportation) and pilot regional workforce planning to match training supply to predicted demand.
Cheryl Stanton told lawmakers the department is pursuing 'sector strategies' that bring together state agencies, local economic developers, educators and businesses to build talent pipelines for high-growth sectors. She said data teams identified four regions and that the state is working to match completer data from the Commission on Higher Education and technical colleges to projected job demand.
Stanton cautioned that projections must be "trued up" with employers and offered the WorkKeys assessment as an example of a tool used to certify work readiness; she said the agency is monitoring ACT's proposed test changes and will coordinate any state-level decision with education and business stakeholders. Committee members pressed for more sharing of ZIP-code and CZ-level analytics to drive K–12 and technical-college alignment.
