Meeting the Workforce Needs of Pennsylvania Agriculture Penn State Agricultural Council April 10, 2008 Scott Sheely Executive Director Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board

Workforce Investment System Established by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998; Replaces the Job Training and Partnership Act and Private Industry Councils; Addresses issues related to… Public system being more demand-driven; Linking workforce and economic development; Training jobseekers for real jobs;

Workforce Investment System Every area in the country has a Workforce Investment Board (21 in PA); Appointed by local elected officials; Majority private sector members; Four basic functions… Participate in economic development processes; Apply labor market information to local workforce planning; Oversee the development and operation of local on-stop service centers; Administer public funding.

Understanding Local Economies Many of us adopted a cluster strategy in developing our investment strategy; Identified industries that were… Growing; Competitive; Growing good (family-sustaining) jobs; Often that was only a part of all of the clusters within a local economy.

In Lancaster In 2001, began looking at 20 industry clusters that account for 98% of all employment; Identified seven priority clusters around which to build our investment strategy; Agriculture and food processing, health care, biotechnology, communications, construction, metals and metal fabricating, and automotive services have been our priorities since 2003

In Pennsylvania Agriculture and Food Processing; Advanced Materials and Diversified Manufacturing; Biomedicine; Building and Construction; Business and Financial; Education; Energy; Health Care; Information and Communication; Logistics and Transportation; Lumber, Wood, and Paper

Drilling Down As a part of JobReady PA, PA Department of Labor and Industry identified High Priority Occupations (HPO) in each of the priority clusters (growing, more than family sustaining wage); Local areas petition to add to the list based on local HPOs; These lists defined the careers that became the focus of Job Ready PA funding

Agriculture and Food Processing (HPO) General and Operations Managers; Sales Representatives; Shipping, Receiving and Traffic Clerks; Maintenance and Repair Workers; Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers; Food Batchmakers; Packaging and Filling Machine Operators Driver/Sales Workers; Truck Drivers

Agriculture Farmers and Ranchers; Farmworkers and Laborers; Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks; Truck Drivers; Packers and Packagers; Secretaries; Agricultural Equipment Operators; Industrial Truck and Tractor Operators; Graders and Sorters

Getting It on the List Lancaster County petitioned for the category “Farmer and Rancher” in 2006 and it was added to the HPO list; Plan to petition again in 2008; Rationalized by the fact that farmers do not show up on DLI statistics and that many people get into farming through their involvement as the member of a farm family

Stretching the Definition Things are changing, however, on the family farm; As the scale of farming operations increase, there are more and more non-family members being hired as flock managers, dairy herdspeople, and operations managers; Our system talks about these opportunities as a part of a career path which leads to the better jobs for which we are looking

In Reality As we have rolled out training for incumbent workers using JobReady PA funding, we have concentrated on skill training for people who are entering and moving up these career paths…not just people at the end of the path; We also have focused on shared training using multiple vendors who respond to priorities identified by industry representatives

Center of Excellence The Lancaster County Center of Excellence in Production Agriculture is the only agriculture-oriented industry partnership in the Commonwealth Key stakeholders include Cooperative Extension, the Lancaster County Conservation District, the Lancaster County Planning Commission, the Economic Development Company of Lancaster County, the Lancaster Chamber and the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board; Tasked with implementing the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Agriculture completed in 2005; Staffed by Gary Willier at the Lancaster

Center of Excellence Served over 60 producer operations in Lancaster, Blair, Bedford, Franklin, Bradford, Centre, Crawford, Dauphin, Union, Somerset, Tioga, Berks, and York Counties; Trained over 400 farm employees with funding in excess of $100,000 in PY07 and 08; Courses included Bottleneck to Profitability; DART; reproduction skills, techniques, and protocols; pesticide application;

Center of Excellence Vendors included the Center for Dairy Excellence, Penn State Dairy Alliance, Professional Dairy Managers of PA, and Cooperative Extension; Additional training in the processing part of the industry provided by the Food Manufacturers’ Consortium of South Central PA; Trained over 700 workers in PY07 with an additional $470,000+ in funding

Center of Excellence Exploring pipelines to agriculture careers; Encouraging innovation through Manure Council and Renewable Energy Council; Supporting ag economic development and conservation outreach to the Plain community in Lancaster; Encouraging local research and development

Conclusion HPOs are key to bringing focus to workforce investment but they may be too restrictive for some industries including ag; The concept works if we talk about career ladders and building a portfolio of transferable skills; Current programming concentrates on skill building and getting multiple operations together to do shared training; It’s a bargain for producers…training subsidized at 60% (but it does require people to give up their social security numbers)

Contact Scott Sheely Executive Director Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board 313 W. Liberty St. Suite 114 Lancaster, PA