South Central Workforce Investment Board (SCWIB)
Construction and Building Industry Regional Consortium

SCWIB Consortium Coordinator:
Carrie Kutney, Phone: (717) 920-7097, Email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
CareerLink Sectoral Specialist:
Vacant

Mission: To build an overarching regional industry partnership in the Construction and Building Industry in the South Central Pennsylvania Workforce Area (Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Juniata, Lebanon, Perry and York Counties) that will operate as “workforce intermediaries,” a professed dual customer institution that connects and meets the needs of both construction workers and construction firms. This partnership brings together companies with overlapping workforce needs in an Industry Cluster identified by the South Central Workforce Investment Board as important to the region’s overall economic development. This Consortium is an organizational part of the South Central WIB (SCWIB) located within its Program Development Committee (creating education and training program that are industry driven and aimed at industry identified skills gaps.

In the South Central Pennsylvania region, the Construction Industry needs highly skilled workers, the workers in the Construction Industry need family-sustaining jobs and career ladder opportunities, and the Commonwealth and its economy need superior companies and skilled workers. Industry partnerships have been proven to be a key institutional innovation in many industries for meeting the skills needs of industry, the career goals of workers, and the economic development goals of the Commonwealth.

Goals and Objectives:

• Identify the training needs of businesses in the area’s Construction Industry, including skill gaps critical to competitiveness and innovation.
• Facilitate companies to come together to aggregate training and education needs in the Construction Industry. Provide an often “missing link” between private businesses and educational institutions to better align training and education to industry demand, particularly demand for higher skilled workers
• Develop new career ladders within and across companies, enabling entry-level workers to improve skills to advance into higher skill, higher wage jobs. Develop new industry credentials that give companies confidence in the skills of new hires and workers more mobility across firms.
• Provide advanced skills training, supervisory skills training, business processes training, and computer training for incumbent workers representing 14 unions and over 100 contractors in the Construction Trades Industry throughout the SCWIB region.
• Facilitate stronger connection between business and educational institutions to better align training and education to industry demand, particularly demand for higher skilled workers in order to modify existing training programs or create new ones, and to ensure that these training programs embrace the concept of innovation as defined above.
• Provide counseling and support services for program participant to help them identify career ladder opportunities as a result of the training, enabling both apprentice-level and journeyman-level workers to improve skills to advance into higher skill, higher wage jobs.
• Work with education institutions to develop training that is a) aligned with “best practice” construction trades industry training programs from other regions within Pennsylvania or from other states; and b) results in participants acquiring an industry-recognized credential.

Resources: For Program Year 2005 (7/1/05 to 6/30/06)

• $150,000 available from PA Department of Labor & Industry to build capacity of the Construction and Building Industry Regional Consortium.
• $400,000 proposal into the PA Department of Labor & Industry for incumbent (existing) worker training for area firms.

Charter Members: Mechanical Contractors Association of Central PA, Central Pennsylvania Building Trades Council, Laborers’ International Union Construction & General Laborers, Central PA Construction Partnership (CP2), Capital Area Labor Management Council, Keystone Contractors Association, Greater PA Regional Council of Carpenters and over 20 Building Trade Unions and over 100 companies in the Construction Industry Cluster.