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By Guy Page
The state’s Regional Workforce Expansion Pilot program is hiring coordinators to find and train (mostly) young people to join the labor force.
According to a June 18 report, the program has selected two key regions, the Northeast Kingdom and Addison County, to pilot new strategies aimed at connecting diverse populations to in-demand jobs.
Established by Act 183 of 2022 and reauthorized in Act 146 of 2024, the pilot program seeks to engage job seekers with barriers to employment and encourage employers to adapt their hiring and employment practices to them. The overarching goal, under the leadership of newly hired Workforce Expansion Program Manager Andrea Nicoletta, is to promote employer practices that create “good jobs” and expand opportunities for priority populations.
The Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce (NEKCC), serving Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans counties, will concentrate on the region’s vital manufacturing and healthcare sectors. The NEK faces unique (even for Vermont) workforce challenges due to a small, aging population and rural geography.
The Chamber will work to connect individuals, including youth, justice-involved people, and career changers, to jobs by strengthening pathways from education to employment through expanded access to Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs and employer-driven training.
The Addison County Economic Development Corporation (ACEDC) also will prioritize healthcare and manufacturing, the county’s two largest employment sectors. The region struggles with numerous unfilled job openings, compounded by housing and childcare barriers.
ACEDC intends to help the Addison County Workforce Alliance (ACWA) by improving coordination of job training, clarifying career pathways, and reaching out to underemployed populations such as youth, people with disabilities, and adults without a high school diploma.
The pilot program is actively recruiting Workforce Expansion Coordinators for both regions. These coordinators are expected to be hired by August 2025. Over the next two years, the pilot will focus on developing and implementing sector-specific strategies, with final program reports and recommendations for statewide expansion or policy alignment due between April and June 2027.
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Categories: State Government
Here we go again, another wasteful recruiting program. Cut benefits, make people work, stop the freeloading. You don’t work, you don’t eat, simple. Grow a pair Vermont Legislature, enoughs, enough. I have to work twice as hard to raise my family. Guess it’s easier to take drugs, take benefits, and let someone else pay for it all.
Where will this targeted group to fill these jobs come from ? How about first trying to entice native Vermonters to stay here, and fill any jobs created ? I would point to a previous article about hiring a new police chief from New Hampshire to fill the Chief of Police position in South Burlington. There evidently was no one within that department worthy of promotion ? If that department and the selectboard are not training officers currently on their force to advance, no wonder potential candidates who are passed over move on elsewhere ! After you have been passed over for promotion, when you have been striving for that promotion, it’s only a matter of time before you question why do I keep trying ? I’ve seen this in local police departments all too often .
Want young people to stay here? Reduce the tax burden and make housing affordable. It’s that simple!
Think about this. The State can hire ‘coordinators’. So… if they can hire ‘coordinators’, why do they need more young people in the labor force? Just hire more ‘coordinators’. Or better yet, hire some of the hospital network staff being laid off.
These people are all ‘word-salad gardeners’. They make no sense.
John Montgomery is spot on.
Just reduce the tax burden (cut government programs and staff) and everything else, including housing, will be fixed by the resulting efficiencies inherent in a free market economic system.
Of course, the government will never allow this to happen (unless voters start electing reasonable people). Because if it was allowed, we would more clearly than ever see the graft and corruption that is Vermont government today. And make no mistake, Vermont’s government is, obviously, corrupt.
Low paying manafacturing jobs will not bring young people to Vermont. I was just told by a Vermonter that I was white and not entitled to obtain meaningful employment nor advancement in my chosen profession. Why would young people move to such a state, unless the state really intends to bring in “diverse” populations” to meet DEI goals.
Again they have it wrong, employers don’t have to adapt to fit the employee, you want a job you adapt to the employers standards or work somewhere else!!
How do you teach people to want to work??? You stop giving them everything for free. And once you teach them to try to be self sufficient, how do you teach them work ethic?