HIGHLIGHTS: STARTING YOUNG IN SCHOOLS WITH CAREER AWARENESS IS IMPORTANT IN STIMULATING INTEREST AMONG CHILDREN; ALASKA SHOULD BUILD ON NATIONAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN TO ATTRACT SKILLED WORKERS, BUT CHALLENGES SEEN IN WAGE COMPETITIVENESS WITH OTHER STATES. MODERATOR: SHAREEN CROSBY, Office of Infrastructure, State of Alaska PANEL: n CATHY MUNOZ, Acting Commissioner, Alaska Dept. Labor & Workforce Development n CARI-ANN CARTY, Executive Director, Alaska Safety Alliance n JOCELYN FENTON, Director of Programs, Denali Commission n LORI DAVEY, Manager – Alaska, Bedrock Petroleum Consultants KEY POINTS: n Targeting youth is a priority n Education loan forgiveness, assistance n Travel stipend for rural training DISCUSSION: Shareen Crosby: Our workforce challenges are real, so this panel is going to focus on solutions, how can Alaska attract and develop our workforce as we add jobs for infrastructure also understanding that we’re competing for many of the same folks as the Lower 48. Cathy Munoz: We need a multi-pronged approach. One of our greatest resources is our youth, so targeting career awareness at the secondary levels in 11th and 12th grade, and before that, is very beneficial. But we need to do more. I think we need to be more aggressive in getting information to our schools to secondary students about career opportunities and the paths to get there. I think we need to aggressively market to our youth. I think we also need to market outside of the state. The governor, in the last year, inserted $5 million for a marketing Alaska campaign. I believe it needs to include a marketing to attract workers to our state. Targeting our youth is important as well as strengthening partnerships with our military. We’re also working at the Department of Labor on citizenship assistance, to welcome immigrant and refugees coming to Alaska. Cari-Ann Carti: We definitely need to start with career awareness for our youth, to be exposed to careers. The more we can do that in an experiential way where they do job shadowing or a hands-on component, all of that is critical. There were some great programs (in the past) with loan forgiveness for students, whether they went in-state or out-of-state. As long as they then maintained residency in the state those loans were forgiven. When we’re looking at the generation coming up, entering the workforce debt free is important. With an employer it’s important to make an investment, so if there are ways that we can either help people start dead free or help them become debt free that’s going to be really a great way for employers to incentivize keeping our youth here and bringing other workers from out of state. Lori Davey: I would agree on retaining and attracting. Our company is working on an initiative on the attract side of it. I have a database of over two million technical and engineers and surprisingly over 10,000 have Alaska experience. Those are the folks who have left Alaska and we’re trying to get them back. A lot of people do want to come back, but one of the challenges is we have to be competitive with wages. I hear that our wages are maybe 10 percent higher than the Lower 48 but our cost of living is about 25 percent higher. We need to be a little more competitive. A lot of workers are rotational so being able to help them with airfare is an important as well as, if they’re going to live up here, having some kind of per diem that will help them with the extra cost of living. Basically, we’ve got to bring our workforce back, or bring in new people. Jocelyn Fenton: We need to identify the jobs and identify the training programs, or the gaps in the training or the challenges to access that training. Sometimes that requires some travel. A supplement to get students to a training facility could help. The Denali Commission has innovative projects where we’re doing virtual reality training in communities so that folks don’t have to leave to be job ready. — COMPILED BY TIM BRADNER LEADING THE WAY FOR THE NEXT GENERATION IN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT 30 ALASKA RESOURCE REVIEW WINTER 2024
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTcxMjMwNg==