Businesses get involved to fill jobs

More than a dozen manufacturers in the Sarasota-Bradenton region are attempting to flip one of the most daunting challenges faced by any business: finding skilled and well-trained employees.

The manufacturers, a group that includes local stalwart Sun Hydraulics; plastic injection molding firm Octex; and Florida Knife Co., banded with the Sarasota County Technical Institute to launch a new precision machinery course. The 10-month course costs participants $4,000. And a job, starting in the $25,000-$30,000 annual salary range, awaits graduates, says Nathalie deWolfe with CareerEdge, a workforce development organization that connected local manufacturers with SCTI.

The course is scheduled to begin in the fall. “It's an amazing opportunity,” deWolfe tells Coffee Talk. “[Precision machinery] is where the new face of manufacturing is going.”

What's also new, says deWolfe, named executive director of CareerEdge in March, is local businesses took decisive action on the education and training side of finding and hiring employees. That hasn't always happened, but many of the companies in this program, says deWolfe, helped write the curriculum and coursework. “The level of employer involvement,” says deWolfe, “is pretty unprecedented.”