St. Louis County, MO (KTRS) St. Louis County is celebrating a workforce achievement.
During a Wednesday morning news conference, County Executive Steve Stenger joined community, education, and business leaders to announce that St. Louis County has achieved ACT Certified Work Ready Community status.
“The Certified Work Ready Designation is a game changer,” Stenger said. “With this tool, businesses know that the skilled workers they need for a productive workforce are readily available in St. Louis County. Also, individuals who want to enter the workforce understand what skills are required by employers & how to prepare themselves for success.”
Over 300 companies in St. Louis County actively support CWRC including Boeing, Ameren and Sprint.
CWRC is partially based on the number of individuals in the St. Louis County workforce that demonstrate proficiency in applied mathematics, understanding workplace documents and graphic literacy. ACT sets a target number of individuals that must demonstrate through testing that they meet these criteria in order for a county to be awarded certification. Test results showed that St. Louis County has three times the number of highly proficient workers required for certification.
“We as educators are thrilled about the CWRC achievement in St. Louis County,” said Dr. Jeff Pittman, Chancellor of St. Louis Community College. “We have a dedicated training center where students are learning the skills that make them Certified Work Ready. After completing our program, they are prepared to enter the workforce and make an immediate contribution to their respective companies.”
St. Ann City Administrator Matt Conley said this will have a significant impact with attracting companies to the region, “It shows that the region’s workforce is skilled and trained. That’s a huge, huge thing. When Amazon was going through their list of places to locate, if we would of had that box at the time, that would of been huge.”
To date, St. Louis County is the largest county nationally to achieve this status.
