Area work force training shifts emphasis to retaining local jobs

DEXTER, Mo. -- Mike Seabaugh, a member of the Workforce Investment Board, told the Bootheel Regional Planning and Development Commission (BRPC) that Southeast Missouri has lost 2,400 manufacturing jobs in recent years and he was helping coordinate an effort to combat this problem. His comments came at the regular meeting of the Commission held Thursday.

Seabaugh said the emphasis of work force training is shifting from training people who are unemployed or underemployed, to trying to keep important jobs that are already in the Bootheel. He is the business resource coordinator for the Business Resource Network, which serves 13 area counties. These counties make up both the Bootheel Planning and Development Commission and the Southeast Missouri Planning and Development Commission.

"Our real customer is business," Seabaugh said. "The trainee is our product."

He said job losses in the area amounted to roughly 3,000 because of all those indirectly effected when a plant closes its doors. That is why the Division of Workforce Development is developing resources to reduce the loss of manufacturing jobs, he told the group. He added that community leaders should be looking at not only keeping their industries, but providing them with information to help them expand.

Seabaugh told commissioners about the Business Survey System. The system was bought by AmerenUE, but the Workforce Investment Board has contracted with AmerenUE to use the system to help communities stop the loss of business and industry that has been occurring. It is called the Business Retention and Expansion Program. In this program, the retention coordinator "assembles and leads a team of community experts who target at-risk companies, develop strategies for layoff intervention and leverage resources to save jobs."

Working with communities

Seabaugh said the program requires face-to-face interviews between community members and industry. The information gained from these interviews is then entered into a database and the results are shared with industry officials and business owners.

"I am working with five communities to do that," Seabaugh said, "all using volunteers."

The five communities are Dexter, Caruthersville, Jackson, Cape Girardeau and Sikeston. He said that Cape Girardeau and Sikeston were just coming into the program. He admitted that these were the bigger cities in the Bootheel, but urged commission members to recruit other communities into the process.

Rick Murray, Malden city administrator, said, "Some of us have used this service, and it works."

BRPC executive director Dave Duke asked whether Dexter had completed any of the interviews.

Janet Coleman, executive director of the Dexter Chamber of Commerce, said the city was trying to target their industries and put together a program. Coleman said she was the team leader, and would conduct the interview while another member helped with the paperwork. She said initially they had hoped to form two-person teams made up of Chamber board members, but they found that considerable training was needed to conduct these interviews.

Coleman said she was taking some "webinars" on the subject and they were helpful.

Coleman told the group that one interview had been completed with one of the larger employees in Dexter, but she was still working on entering the data into the system.

Seabaugh said the program was designed to use local people because, "Business is a lot more responsive to people they know on a social level, instead of people like me."

Coleman said the survey does not ask about whether an industry or business has a problem. Seabaugh emphasized that no questions are asked about income, profitability or any other personal data.

He concluded by urging board members to talk to their communities and become involved in trying to find a way to keep the doors of industry open in Southeast Missouri.