Governor Perdue Names Turner County
as
Work Ready Certified
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Georgia Work Ready Community Leader Fred McConnel of the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development helped representatives from Moultrie Technical College and Turner County celebrate the county's new designation as a certified Work Ready Community of Excellence on May 18th at the Thrasher House in Ashburn. The event was held as a ribbon cutting in partnership with the Ashburn-Turner County Chamber of Commerce.
Governor Sonny Perdue announced five new Certified Work Ready Communities on May 14, a designation communicating the counties have the skilled workforces needed to meet business demands and drive economic growth, as well as the educational foundation to build a pipeline of workers ready to create ongoing success.
“By earning Work Ready Certificates and building a culture of lifelong learning, these communities gain a valuable competitive advantage,” said Governor Perdue. “These counties have developed the tools necessary to attract new industry and jobs, give their citizens confidence and boost opportunity.”
Turner is joined by Polk, Screven, Telfair and Wilkes counties in the recent designation. These counties represent the seventh group to demonstrate a commitment to improving public high school graduation rates through a measurable increase and have shown a specified percentage of the available and current workforce has obtained Work Ready Certificates.
Turner countians earned 335 Work Ready Certificates, which is 60 percent more than the set goal, and increased the public high school graduation rate from 62.8 percent to 72.3 percent.
Each community created a team of economic development, government and technical education partners to meet the certification criteria. Counties are given three years to reach the goals necessary to earn the designation.
Once counties attain their Certified Work Ready Community goals, they are able to maintain their status by ensuring a small percent of their available workforce continue to earn Work Ready Certificates, engage local businesses to recognize and use Work Ready, and continue to increase their public high school graduation rate until they reach a threshold of 75 percent.
To continue their work, each county will receive a $10,000 grant. Their Work Ready Community teams will also receive a two-year membership to their local chamber of commerce and a budget for additional Work Ready outreach materials. Counties that are fully certified receive road signs and a seal denoting the year they achieved certification.
Georgia’s Work Ready initiative is based on a skills assessment and certification for job seekers and a job profiling system for businesses. By identifying both the needs of business and the available skills of Georgia’s workforce, the state can more effectively generate the right talent for the right jobs. The Certified Work Ready Community initiative builds on the assessments and job profiling system to create opportunities for greater economic development.
For more information on the Work Ready initiative please visit the Web site at www.gaworkready.org
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