Louisiana FastStart™ Louisiana Workforce Commission Higher Education &Training Industry-Education Collaboration in Workforce Development
As a program of Louisiana Economic Development, FastStart™ provides customized employee recruitment, screening, training development and training delivery for eligible, new or expanding companies – all at no cost. FastStart™ has been recognized for its innovation, effectiveness, flexibility and efficiency. It was named by Business Facilities magazine as the nation's best state workforce training program. Based on a company's immediate and long-term workforce needs, the FastStart™ team crafts unique programs that ensure high-quality workers are job ready on day one. The FastStart™ team includes dozens of experienced professionals from a range of businesses – manufacturing to corporate headquarters, digital media to customer support centers and R&D. Contact Jeff Lynn, Executive Director, 225.342.0107 for more information.
Formerly Louisiana’s Department of Labor, the mission of the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) is to lead the redevelopment of the state workforce system to deliver the workforce that Louisiana’s current and future employers need. Services are delivered by the 18 Business & Career Solutions Centers located throughout the state. Download a pdf of contacts.
In North Louisiana, there are seven four-year universities and five 2-year colleges (community and technical) with a combined 2010 enrollment of approximately 60,000. Our institutions of higher learning provide excellent training for a variety of workforce needs. The community and technical colleges in the region have proven especially responsive to the needs of regional employers and have quickly adopted new degree and certificate programs to address critical skills shortages in industry sectors that have strong growth potential in the region, such as healthcare, energy, manufacturing, hospitality and information technology . Community college enrollment has grown significantly over the last several years as a result. There are also many strong higher education training providers within an hour’s drive of North Louisiana in central Louisiana, east Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi that have enrollment of another 150,000 students.
Impressive partnerships have developed between industry and education to generate interest in target occupations among the future workforce in our region. Industry-focused non-profit organizations like the Biomedical Research Foundation and the Cyber Innovation Center sponsor innovative programs at the K-12 level to encourage students to study science, technology, engineering and math. An impressive Process Technology program at Louisiana Delta Community College is the result of a partnership between Delta and ANGUS Chemical Company to develop a work-ready pipeline of employee prospects for the chemical manufacturer. A collaboration of energy companies operating in the Haynesville Shale has partnered with the Consortium for Education, Research and Technology and several regional colleges and universities to develop the Energy Camp Summer Program for high school students to learn more about the energy industry and careers it offers. Employers will find many willing partners in academia, government and the non-profit sector in North Louisiana to assist them in finding the right labor force, to training workers and to customize solutions that meet the needs of employers.