Workforce Efforts With Licking County Collaborative

We are reintroducing you to GROW Licking County every Monday to share the many aspects of our agency and economic development. Hope you’re enjoying following along!

As we mentioned last week, workforce is one of Licking County’s greatest assets with our great educational partners like Career and Technology Education Center of Licking County (CTEC), Central Ohio Technical College (COTC), Ohio State University Newark, and Denison.

However, it is not just the local opinion that our workforce and partners are excellent. Recently, EMSI, a nationally known labor market analytics firm, released their Fifth Annual Talent Attraction Scorecard. Licking County ranked 26th from a pool of over 600 large counties across the country. Counties were ranked by cost of living, job availability, wages, education, and other key drivers for talent in the market.

While we’re proud of our workforce, the work doesn’t stop with a great rating. Since June of 2020, a collaborative made up of GROW Licking County CIC, The Licking County Chamber of Commerce, OhioMeansJobs – Licking County, Licking County Educational Services Center, COTC, and C-TEC has been working with Thomas P. Miller and Associates (TPMA) to conduct a Workforce Needs Assessment aligning local curriculum and skills development activities to employment opportunities in Licking County. Our skills gap report is available for your review.

To view the latest on this workforce gap analysis, https://lickingcountyworks.com/skillsgap

The next step for this collaborative is to create the Licking County Career Pathways. Working again with TPMA and our local collaborators, we’ll identify and focus on the most in-demand jobs in our local economy and create materials to present a clear pathway to increase earning potential. Stay tuned for a full report at the end of the year.

  Remember to check back next Monday to learn more about GROW!