Syracuse, N.Y. — Central New York has openings for good, high-paying jobs, with more coming upon Micron Technology’s expected arrival.
The real challenge is training enough talent to fill the enormous need.
Workforce development professions from health care to manufacturing came together Tuesday at the NY Workforce Connect conference at Syracuse University to discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead. The event was coordinated by Advance Media New York, publisher of syracuse.com and The Post-Standard.
Rising to the challenge will require coordination, not competition, among a host of major players up and down the Thruway corridor, panelists said.
It’ll take an employee-centered approach that offers everything from flexible work hours to help finding transportation to child care. It takes recruiting young students, from K-12, to start showing them the possibilities that are available.
And it will take reaching people who don’t feel such jobs — like at Micron’s planned fabs — are for them.
“Sometimes, the training is the easiest part,” said Donald Crampton, director of strategic partnerships at Syracuse University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.
It’s keeping and growing the workforce that’s the ultimate goal.
Here are some themes from the day:
Size of the need
The semiconductor industry, and Micron Technology’s expected arrival in Clay, are fueling the need for thousands of more workers in high-tech and chipmaking jobs.
In the near future, 1 in 4 U.S.-made chips will be made in and around Upstate New York, said Michelle Clarke, who works for Empire State Development’s Office of Strategic Workforce Development.
Put another way, no other region in the nation will be home to that kind of concentrated output in the semiconductor industry, she said.
Central New York, she added, is expected to see a 21% increase in gross domestic product and population growth that rivals the 1950s.
“The urgency of this moment is upon us,” Clarke said. “We need to work toward job placements that stick.”
Collaborate, not compete
With the need so great, there’s room for everybody to thrive. Colleges need to share resources, not fight over students. Someone trained to rebuild Interstate-81 might transition into building a Micron fab.
Everyone from government to educators to businesses needs to figure out how many more jobs in each profession are needed. Is that 600 steamfitters?
CenterState CEO is helping create a supply and demand dashboard for construction jobs. They’ll need one for manufacturing jobs in the future.
“We all need to be successful,” said Chris Harris, assistant vice president of government and community relations at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
“This is a collaborative effort, not a competitive one,” added Taylor Spires, workforce development project coordinator at Syracuse University.
Barriers to the workplace
A common challenge across industries involves the very first step – getting people to enter the job training or educational pipeline.
“We have the power to help lift someone up,” said Chris White, the first vice chancellor of workforce development in the SUNY system.
A key solution is meeting people where they are at, whether that means helping someone earn a high school diploma or enroll in a graduate program.
Low-income job candidates often struggle with transportation and child care, said CNY Works Executive Director Rosemary Avila.
One solution: CenterState CEO has a “Vehicles to Work” program that helps apprentices with legal and financial advice so they can get a car and a valid driver’s license.
But what else stops people from trying? Cost is a major factor, White said.
One Medicaid-funded program, CaringGENE, is trying to help. It provides free schooling to people who want to pursue jobs, like nursing, that are in high demand. But there’s a tight deadline: Applicants must finish their academic work by spring 2027 to receive funding.
Other issues to overcome involve not knowing where to start and what training is available. Worst of all, White said, too often people think it’s too hard to make a job change or enter a industry.
Start small but offer growth
Offering short-term credentials help people quickly get a job, earn money and have the chance to keep learning and growing.
At Onondaga Community College, students can take a five-week course and become a certified nursing assistant, according to David Furney, the school’s dean of health and technology.
That first CNA job can, he said, lead to more training to become a home health aide. Over time, that same worker can work toward become a licensed practical nurse and even a registered nurse, he said.
The key, Furney said, is to create pathways so students can “grow along the way.”
Grow technicians organically
The foundation of an advanced manufacturing workforce is the technicians who run the machines, said Chris Suozzi, executive vice president of the Genesee County Economic Development Center.
Those technicians, he said, are whom communities need to train first.
“What companies need is technicians, the frontline workers,” Suozzi said. “That’s the big one across the country. Need technicians? Grow them organically.”
Training those technicians starts long before college, said Suozzi, whose focus is on K-12 kids. He said Genesee and nearby counties sponsor hands-on events with simulation equipment that teach everything from welding to pneumatics.
“It gets kids out of the classroom, seeing careers that they would never see in the classroom,” Suozzi said. “A kid can’t be what he can’t see.”
Over the past eight years, 18,000 students participated in some kind of workforce programs in and around Genesee County, he said, and 100 students have jumped into full-time jobs in everything from advanced manufacturing to food processing.
The programs he oversees in Batavia can be replicated across the state, he said.
Suozzi, an intense sports fan who connects with kids as Coach SwazZ, had three key pieces of advice to inspire K-12 kids and get them interested in tech careers.
- Promote your programs on social media
- Get the right equipment for kids to learn on.
- Focus on training entry-level workers.
Adapting to unique needs
Companies like Micron value military veterans. Tuesday’s conference was held at SU’s D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families.
But veterans, like other groups, have unique barriers to entering the workforce.
For Mike Bianchi, the institute’s senior education and career training director, looking at data was different after he left the Army.
In the service, either the equipment worked or it didn’t work. Afterward, he said, he had to learn important words: “It depends.”
Reaching out to underserved populations is extremely important to grow the talent pool. For example, some Syracuse residents don’t feel they are the right fit for Micron jobs, said Aimee Durfee, of CenterStateCEO.
“Those jobs are for people in the suburbs,” people have told her. “They’re not for us.”
That led to the Syracuse Bridge to Manufacturing Careers program, which held its first classes at the Northside Learning Center, in the heart of the city’s refugee community.
Even when company leaders open the door to hire people with disabilities, that message doesn’t resonate with hiring managers, who aren’t sure how to evaluate those job candidates, said Kelly Burkett, of ACCES-VR, a state education program for adults with disabilities.
The key, she said, is “skills-based hiring,” where an employer looks at what talents a person with a disability might have, as opposed to their complicated path to get there.
The value to adding people with unique needs goes beyond expanding the talent pool, Bianchi said.
It brings ‘diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of people, diversity of solutions," he said.
Staff writer Teri Weaver contributed to this report.
NY's workforce challenges and solutions
