BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CRESTVIEW HILLS -- A Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce committee that has studied ways to find enough workers for all the jobs out there is making its recommendations this morning.
Northern Kentucky's unemployment rate of roughly 4 percent provides a limited number of potential employees. The chamber has labeled the dearth of available workers as the biggest problem facing local businesses.
The recommendations will be part of a chamber breakfast focusing on workforce readiness. The chamber's workforce task force has studied the problem for two years.
For the short term, the workforce committee, headed by Sanitation District General Manager Jeff Eger, is suggesting more recruiting trips to regional military bases. About 300 job seekers participated in an event at Fort Knox last month, and that already has produced some hires.
A larger job fair is planned for September at Fort Knox. If that's successful, the Northern Kentucky Chamber also could be going to Fort Campbell, Ky. and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Eger said.
The second recommendation is conducting training sessions for companies in similar fields with help from a little-used state program. The Bluegrass State Skills Corp. offers training grants to companies.
"Some companies do (use the program), but not to the extent that they do across the state," Mr. Eger said. "We're just not taking advantage of it."
In addition to training existing workers for companies, the program could be opened to the community at large. And Mr. Eger said that could link people to the companies taking part.
For the long term, a closer relationship with schools is being urged for the business community.
"We're kind of dating, but we need to do more than that," Mr. Eger said.
He would like to see career day efforts broken down into more frequent visits with smaller groups of students at regional schools. The efforts would be modeled after a federal school-to-work program that is losing its funding this summer, he said.
