Arizona plans to create a network of facilities intended to train rural residents for jobs needed by local employers.
In an announcement Thursday, Gov. Katie Hobbs said the first two of these “workforce acceleration facilities” are in Yuma and Kingman. A total of six are expected, but neither the governor’s office nor the Arizona Department of Commerce have provided details.
But the governor admitted in a separate interview with Capitol Media Service that there are other problems in rural areas. That is how to establish a company in a rural area in the first place. And that means dealing with another set of hurdles and another set of solutions, she said.
In his speech at the Arizona Workforce Summit, Hobbs said the more pressing issue is matching workers with incumbents.
And there are gaps.
“According to our latest data, Arizona employers have more than 200,000 job openings in April,” she said.
Regionally, the governor said each of these new locations will focus on the specific needs of existing local employers.
In Yuma, for example, the company plans to work with Arizona Western College to offer training in electrical engineering, advanced manufacturing, broadband fiber optics, and solar installations. And it does so in partnership with companies such as Yuma Electric, Sunray Electric, Aro Fiber and General Motors Proving Grounds.
The planned 30,000-square-foot facility in Kingman in partnership with Mojave Community College is a little different. The focus will be on manufacturing, transportation and mining, the governor said, and will eventually work with Freeport McMoran.
But how does the state establish new local employers and create new jobs?
“We need to think carefully about how economic growth benefits people not just in Maricopa County, but all of Arizona,” Hobbs told the Capitol Media Service after his speech. Still, she said it’s not easy to tell a company, like Kingman vs. Chandler, “should belong.”
“Many factors go into deciding where businesses will relocate or build,” the governor said.
Part of that is securing a trained local workforce, she said, and these training centers will help solve some of that.
“It’s like the chicken and the egg,” the governor said.
“If you have the workforce, you can attract business,” she continued. “We can do that if we build partnerships.
But Hobbes said that alone would not work.
“Broadband is part of that,” she said, following an announcement earlier this week that the state would receive nearly $1 billion in federal funding to build infrastructure and deploy technology to scale high-speed internet over the next five years. I made an offer. Accessible outside of metropolitan areas.
Hobbes is not alone in thinking so. Mignonne Hollis, executive director of the Arizona Regional Economic Development Foundation, called the funding a “game changer.”
“This is especially pronounced in rural areas, where access to reliable, high-speed communications is one of the biggest obstacles to economic development, access to telemedicine and quality of life,” she said. said in a prepared statement about the money.
It leads to another obstacle.
Companies are often reluctant to locate in some rural areas because of the level of medical care available to their executives and employees. And Hobbs acknowledged that there are only two Level 1 trauma centers outside of Maricopa County, one in Tucson and one in Flagstaff.
It may never change. But the governor said broadband could help fill some of the other gaps in rural healthcare and make it available statewide through telemedicine to professionals in urban areas.
And even maintaining transportation systems is important, “so is ensuring the ability to get people to level 1 trauma centers,” Hobbs said.
Still, there are other issues such as housing and water.
“They are all part of the puzzle,” the governor said. “And employees alone (training) can’t solve a problem if they don’t all come together.”
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Tags: Yuma, Infrastructure, Workforce Accelerator, Hobbs, Alo Fiber, Business, Mining, Arizona Regional Economic Development Foundation, Manufacturing, Employers, Tucson, Flagstaff, Kingman, Freeport McMorran, Jobs, Technology, Maricopa County, Broadband , Sunray Electric, General Motors