ALABAMAWORKS! UPDATE NEWSLETTER – MARCH 2019

Be in the know, hear great speakers, network and participate in thought-provoking breakout sessions at this year’s AlabamaWorks! Workforce Conference. It will be held April 23 – April 25 in Birmingham.

Click here to get the early-bird special price!

Manufacture Alabama has launched two different scholarship programs with the Alabama Community College System and the University of North Alabama.

MA’s Iron and Steel Council will be partnering with ACCS, while MA itself will join forces with UNA.

You can read about the union with ACCS at Yellowhammer, or click here to learn more about the partnership with UNA.

Ashley Kimbel, a 17-year-old high school senior from Alabama with a knack for engineering, put her skills to good use when she met Kendall Bane, a Marine and leg amputee. The two went on the Today Show to share their stories.

Click here to watch their story.

Dozens of businesses and more than 4,900 students from Alabama, Georgia and Florida recently converged at the National Peanut Festival Fairgrounds in Dothan for Southeast AlabamaWorks hands-on career event, Worlds of Work.

For eight consecutive months, the number of people counted as employed in Alabama reached record highs. In January, this number measured 2,123,398, breaking December 2018’s revised count of 2,120,769.

“People are working in Alabama. Employers are hiring in Alabama. We continue to report record numbers of people with jobs, and we are seeing fewer and fewer people counted as unemployed, which is what we like to see,” said Fitzgerald Washington, secretary of the Alabama Department of Labor.

Read more here.

The Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education launched its latest chapter at AIDT’s Robotics Training Center in Tanner. The event was marked with a ribbon cutting, a tour and an informational session.

Toyota has several cooperative students in this new program. Watch here as a company representative and a student explain what the program means to them.

You can also view WAFF’s coverage of the event here.

The Appalachian Regional Commission has awarded $1.5 million in grant funding to the West AlabamaWorks – Region 3 Workforce Development Council.

“The announcement continues an ongoing commitment for innovative economic development in Appalachia’s coal-impacted communities,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Tim Thomas. “Investing in key regional needs now will benefit the region and the rest of the country well into the future.”

Read more at WVTM.

Gindi Prutzman has been named as the new director of the Central AlabamaWorks Region 5. She comes to the region from Dothan, where she served as the president of the Dothan Education Foundation.