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Grant Could Bridge Gap Between Skills and Jobs in CNY

Scott Willis
/
WAER News

Senator Charles Schumer stopped by the Ultra Dairy plant in East Syracuse Monday to promote an initiative he hopes will teach new skills needed to land advanced  manufacturing jobs in Central New York. 
  The State University of New York has applied for a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to support a career training program.  If approved, the funding would go to Onondaga Community College and nearly 30 other SUNY schools, in addition to local businesses like Byrne Dairy. Schumer says that jobs in mechatronics are more advanced than traditional manufacturing jobs because they require skills in engineering, mechanics and electronics.  He gives an example of how it might work:

 
"OCC and Byrne Dairy will talk, and Byrne would say 'we need skills in this' and then the grant would buy them the equipment they need to train the people, and pay for some of the teachers and professors to train the people.  They'd be training for jobs that were available to Byrne Dairy and other places.  So you're not going to be training people for jobs that are elsewhere or don't exist."

SUNY predicts that in this decade, there will be nearly 13,000 mechatronics job openings throughout New York State, with more than 2,800 of them in Central New York.  

Credit Scott Willis / WAER News
/
WAER News
Byrne Dairy's Ultra Dairy plant off Fly Road near I-481.

  President of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York Randy Wolken, says the only thing standing in the way is skill set.  

"[They're] not getting enough qualified applicants for the jobs.  The jobs are getting more complicated, and baby boomers are aging out of the workplace and need to be replaced.   What will happen is if companies can't find the workers, they will leave."

If the grant is approved by the Department of Labor, OCC will start offering a certificate program in mechatronics and will partner with local companies including Corso’s Cookies, Byrne Dairy, Gear Motions and Morse Manufacturing, among others to place these newly skilled job seekers. 
 

Scott Willis covers politics, local government, transportation, and arts and culture for WAER. He came to Syracuse from Detroit in 2001, where he began his career in radio as an intern and freelance reporter. Scott is honored and privileged to bring the day’s news and in-depth feature reporting to WAER’s dedicated and generous listeners. You can find him on twitter @swillisWAER and email him at srwillis@syr.edu.