It’s been a month since I joined Dina Powell-McCormick to announce America’s Workforce Academy, an accelerated training program from Meta that guarantees people a job in the skilled trades. The details are here, https://bit.ly/4fUlA5d but one month in, I can tell you the results are already very, very encouraging.
Here for instance, we have Lanyia Brooks and Ethan Blake. Until recently, Lanyia worked as a custodian in a data center, where she spent her days maintaining the facility while watching tech professionals build the infrastructure around her. Brooks said that perspective changed completely when a data center technician noticed her work ethic and sent her a link to America’s Workforce Academy. Despite waiting two anxious months to hear back, Brooks was accepted, conquering her fears to take her very first airplane flight to Indianapolis for the opportunity.
One week into the intensive program, Brooks says she is thriving in a high-energy environment alongside a deeply positive and ambitious cohort of classmates. “My immediate goal is to master my training and learning the ins and outs of physical servers and networking — with long-term plans to transition into an advanced technician role within a year,” she said. Backed by supportive instructors and employer-provided accommodations, Brooks said, “This opportunity is my direct path to achieving the American dream.”
Ethan Blake didn’t have to fly to get here, but he said that he felt just as stuck working in retail sales with little opportunity to move up. “I felt a growing desire to move beyond customer service and explore my true interest in technology,” he said.
Despite the 26-year-old’s efforts to break into the field, Blake said he hit a discouraging wall when searching for local employment and faced the daunting reality that his only visible career paths required relocating across the country to tech hubs such as California. “This workplace training program provided the critical local bridge I needed and bypassed the need to relocate and unlocked a clear career in the industry that will drive the future of this country.”
This article, https://bit.ly/4htDXQA, another must-read by the indispensable Salena Zito, confirms something I’ve suspected for a long time – namely, that the skills gap will not close with one effort from one entity, but rather, from a series of efforts like this one, led by companies with the most to gain by reinvigorating the trades on a national level. More such companies are entering the fray everyday, including Ford, Walmart, Carhartt, Blackrock, Lowe’s, Home Depot and many others, all of whom are launching programs and seeing positive results. Good for all of them.
To recap, Meta’s program is a six-week course currently in four states that covers every associated expense and guarantees a job on the other side, working on a Meta job site. It’s a big step in the right direction, and one that I hope other companies take.