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Mike Rowe talks abour SkillsUSA and the skills gap in the American workforce.

SkillsUSA serves more than 331,000 students and instructors annually. This includes 19,019 instructors who join as professional members. Including alumni, SkillsUSA membership totals over 393,000. SkillsUSA has served nearly 14 million annual members cumulatively since 1965 and is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Labor as a successful model of employer-driven workforce development.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SkillsUSA is the largest organization in the United States whose purpose is to serve students preparing for technical, skilled, and service careers. SkillsUSA Ohio has partnered with Career Town Network to launch a virtual career fair for their 35,000 student job seekers in Ohio. "This partnership with Career Town allows SkillsUSA Ohio to establish a virtual, interactive connection between our students and regional employers through online job expos and employment webinars," says Jackie Walker, State Director, SkillsUSA Ohio. "This is a major step for our organization to further our mission of empowering students to succeed at work in addition to helping close the skills gap and help fill the thousands of open skilled trade positions available throughout Ohio."

Qualified job candidates in skilled trade industries are becoming harder and harder to find due to the skilled labor shortage.

The United States Census Bureau estimates that nearly a quarter of the manufacturing workforce is age 55 and older. As baby boomers age and retire, there are not enough young people starting careers in the trades to fill the position that the previous generation has left vacant.

Companies are competing for a tight supply of skilled workers. The talent gap is striking at the heart of middle market as well as large organizations.

"Career Town recognizes the need to assist in the development of preparing young people for a vast array of available technical, skilled and trade services careers", explained Orville Lynch, CEO, Career Town Network. This is a wonderful opportunity to use our virtual events technology to connect SkillsUSA Ohio students with employer recruiters who can tell them, in real time, what they need to do prepare to work for their organizations, no matter where they are located. It's about eliminating barriers to career education and opportunity through technology."

SkillsUSA Ohio will debut its virtual career center at their upcoming State Championship event on April 25-26, 2023 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, through a state-of-the-art interactive "hybrid" career expo event. Students can attend the career fair in person and/or virtually, online. This is where they will meet employers in over 100 different trade industries.

SkillsUSA SkillsUSA Ohio is a nonprofit partnership of education and industry founded in 1952 to strengthen Ohio's skilled workforce and build "leaders in the World of Work". In 1965 the organization expanded to the National Level beginning in Tennessee and expanding to all 50 states and 3 territories. The organization was previously known as VICA (Vocational Industrial Clubs of America) Driven by employer demand, SkillsUSA helps students develop necessary personal and workplace skills along with technical skills grounded in academics. This SkillsUSA Framework empowers every student to succeed at work and in life while helping to close the skills gap in which millions of skilled trade positions go unfilled. Through SkillsUSA's Championships program and curricula, employers have long ensured schools are teaching relevant skills, and with SkillsUSA's new credentialing process, they can now assess how ready potential employees are for the job. In Ohio SkillsUSA serves over 30,000 students per year. Nationally, SkillsUSA has nearly 400,000 members nationwide in high schools, colleges and middle schools, covering over 130 trade, technical and skilled service occupations. SkillsUSA is recognized by the U.S. and Ohio departments of education and labor as integral to career and technical education. It has served nearly 14.2 million members since 1965 over 2 million alone being from Ohio. For more information, visit: https://www.ohioskillsusa.org/.

CAREER TOWN NETWORK Career Town Network, Inc. is an interactive online recruitment services company that specializes in providing virtual recruitment events with proprietary online recruitment applications and customized recruitment event hosting and social media technologies. More information about Career Town Network and upcoming events can be found here https://careertown.net/.

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