Word: austine
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...workers, educators and companies is vital, considering that it can be difficult if not impossible for individuals to know which job to train for next. Even the head of Workforce Solutions admits that focusing on biotech, green energy and video games is really just an educated guess based on Austin's historical strengths and industries that seem poised to grow. One of the reassuring things about capitalism is that over time, workers and companies are pretty good at figuring out the most productive ways to get together. In the short term, though, that realignment can be a struggle...
...creation is also a function of the labor supply. It's not just about firms wanting to hire but also about having people they can usefully employ. There are only four or five cities in the U.S. where Electronic Arts would be likely to develop such a complicated product. Austin is one of them partly because it has a tech-savvy population and a history of fielding such work - and also because it's an easy place for people to train for the profession, with local colleges offering courses in game design and programming...
...Austin also illustrates a systematic approach to making sure people have the right skills to match what companies need. For the past two years, Workforce Solutions, a government-funded not-for-profit, has been partnering with businesses and local schools like Austin Community College to develop a series of training courses to help people upgrade their skills and earn certifications. The modules are built to be accessible to people well into their careers - recognizing that a 40-year-old isn't likely to have two or four years to return to school full time - and focus on Austin...
...Health care as an industry is booming in most places, and Austin is no exception. Over the past three years, Seton has built three medical centers and hired 2,300 people. But getting people into those jobs - nearly 30% of which are for nurses - is a multipronged process. A few years ago, there was a waiting list to enter nursing school in Austin. Seton had to hire nurses trained in the Philippines. Now, with the clinical-education center's extra capacity and new partnerships with nursing programs at local colleges, Seton can hire locally...
...Even so, there is a clear trend emerging: tomorrow's jobs will require people to add more value than ever before. Consider Samsung's only semiconductor-fabrication plant outside South Korea, which sits in northeast Austin. Since the fall, the factory, which makes flash memory for devices like smart phones and iPods, has been undergoing a $500 million upgrade. In advance of the plant's early-summer reopening, Samsung will hire about 200 engineers and technicians to run and service the new, more sophisticated equipment inside. But with the new factory and those new jobs, 500 other positions have been...