YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY

Springfield, MO

Log in Subscribe

Jennifer Jackson, publisher, Springfield Business Journal
SBJ file
Jennifer Jackson, publisher, Springfield Business Journal

SBJ Economic Growth Survey: Publisher's Note

SBJ Economic Growth Survey: Sharpening the Tools

Posted online

Thirty years ago, I was just beginning my career and doing something vastly different than the publishing work I do today. I was an instructor in the construction trades, believe it or not. I went to work with Ozarks Technical Community College in a program called Project CREW, aka Construction Readiness Education for Women. CREW had been established three years earlier as a welfare-to-work program, paving the way for women to work for prevailing wages that would easily exceed their eligibility for government support. It was a novel program at the time and may still have something to teach us today about modeling education and workforce training to attract a group of people that is underrepresented in the current workforce and that provides a faster track to the jackpot.

This edition of Springfield Business Journal is the fifth in a series of six special issues focused on economic growth in the Springfield region. The common thread for all of these issues continues to be workforce. Growth of any kind requires some form of fuel, and economic growth is certainly no exception. In this case, though, manpower is the dwindling resource. Most of us already are feeling the pinch of a shrinking labor pool and having to be more inventive about where and how we find fuel for growth.

In this issue, you will read about what Springfield Public Schools is proactively doing to train the educators that will ultimately replenish the growing pool of teachers planning an early exodus from the profession, and about the work still ahead with regard to teacher pay discrepancies across the state. You will get an inside glimpse at OTC’s investment in trades education with the new construction of a 120,000-square-foot facility for manufacturing training. You also will learn what northwest Arkansas is doing to engage all generations in the workforce and to attract talent from other regions. You will learn more about apprenticeship programs designed to educate workers on the job and how Missouri is already ahead of the pack as one of the top five states for completed apprenticeships in fiscal 2021. I encourage you to read ahead and then engage in the conversation during SBJ’s final Economic Growth Series event on Nov. 16. I’ll look forward to seeing you there!

SBJ 2022 Economic Growth Survey collected April 29-June 22. Survey sample size of 235, with a +/- 5.4% margin of error and 95% confidence interval.

Comments

No comments on this story |
Please log in to add your comment
Editors' Pick
From the Ground Up: Republic Intermediate School

The Republic School District is on track to open its Intermediate School for fifth- and sixth-grade students for the 2025-26 academic year.

Most Read
Update cookies preferences