Growth of Inspire Madison Region Program Reveals Demand for Workers in Key Sectors
The Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP) today announced the results of Inspire Madison Region’s assessment of the 2017-2018 school year. Inspire Madison Region serves a dual purpose: to connect students with regional companies to help these students refine their future occupational goals and to facilitate a means for companies in the Madison Region to take an active role in building their future workforce by connecting with these students.
Inspire Madison Region, the web-based interactive workforce development platform administered by MadREP and available in all public-school districts in the Region, continues its growth trajectory. Currently, nearly 1700 career coaches and over 1300 companies offering more than 5750 experiential learning activities are available for 76,000+ Madison Region students to connect to for career exploration activities.
A review of student interest vs projected areas of growth in the Region suggests the growth of jobs will outpace potential workers entering the workforce in several sectors, most notably Information Technology, Transportation Distribution & Logistics and Hospitality & Tourism. Conversely, the data also suggests interest outpaces available employment in several sectors, including Arts, A/V Technology & Communications, Education & Training and STEM Careers.
“One goal of this exercise was to look at this from the demand side and identify the career clusters, and their associated industries, that may have to do a better job making students aware of their job opportunities,” said Gene Dalhoff, MadREP Vice President of Talent & Education. “On the supply side, it is important to make educators and students aware of career opportunities that are expected to be available, and where there is a mismatch which could give them a competitive advantage down the road in the job market.” MadREP’s methodology involved a review of student interest in each of the 16 career clusters and compared that to the percent of total net new jobs projected in the Madison Region in the next 5 years for each career cluster.
As Inspire participation continues to grow, MadREP will continue to investigate ways to “mine” the data for additional benefit of participating businesses and students. For more information about Inspire, including how your business can benefit from connecting to students via the platform, contact Gene Dalhoff at gdalhoff@madisonregion.org.
