Laurens County Chamber of Commerce Helping Residents with Entry Level Job Skills

Members of the Workforce Development Committee of the Laurens County Chamber of Commerce are working hard to improve the education levels of residents in the county. Residents are being encouraged to complete high school and attend a technical college or university, according to The Clinton Chronicle.

Dr. Cynthia Pitts is the Upper Savannah Regional Education Center Director and Chairman of the Workforce Development Committee.

Dr. Pitts said, “With the national average of adults with two or four-year degrees being 40%; the South Carolina average being 32% and Laurens County being 20.4%, we have some work to do.”

The Workforce Development Committee consists of local business and industry representatives. The committee also features representatives from educational institutions. The committee uses data to track the skills needed for people to work in jobs locally. The educators who are members of the committee want to help residents of all ages and help them acquire the skills needed to get a job and then receive promotions in that company.

WorkKeys is a program used to identify skills that currently exist and then issue certificates for those skills to job applicants. The director of adult education in Laurens County for two high schools and the head of the WorkKeys program is Dr. Joe Makla.

“Both Clinton High School and Laurens District High School are now approved WorkKeys testing sites and both offer the Career Ready 101 curriculum to interested students,” Dr. Makla said.

Teresa Grille is licensed to work for WorkKeys as a profiler. Grille is also a member of the Laurens County Development Corporation.

“Industries would be wise to sign up for the free job profiling that the state is offering, even if they may not have job openings until 2014 or 2015,” she said.

Andy Wallace works for ISO Poly Films. Wallace said, “More and more job applicants are coming in with WorkKeys certifications, and they’re very excited to have achieved those levels of entry level job skills. WorkKeys shows that the applicants possess the skills and knowledge they need for our jobs.”

Dr. David O’Shields is the Superintendent of Laurens School District 56. Dr. O’Shields said, “It is very important that we provide the knowledge, skills, and processes our business and industries need. We must recognize the needs of business and provide the curriculum, instruction, even the soft skills development, that will make our students marketable and competitive. WorkKeys will strengthen our existing programs of study as well as provide formative check points on what we do well and where we need to do better.”

Where can you find the most entry level jobs? Click here.