Kentucky is making a major push to strengthen its workforce.

Governor Andy Beshear recently announced more than 7400 Kentuckians will receive new skills training through the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

Bluegrass State Skills Corporation.

We spoke to Cabinet Commissioner of Business Development about the training, who qualifies, and what it means for Kentucky's future workforce.

The Bluegrass State Skills Corporation was established many years ago through the programs.

We work with new and existing companies to establish opportunities for skills training, occupational upgrade training, and it's really designed for the Kentucky, the company to provide training that will make their company overall more productive, improve performance, support promotion possibilities for those that are going through training, and just to overall better equip Kentuckians with the skills that they need to thrive in their careers.

There are no priorities given to one industry over the other, and the eligible entities are defined in Kentucky statute.

Those include manufacturing, which is where we see a bulk of the applications coming in agribusiness, non-retail service or technology.

So, you know, logistics centers and things of that nature, headquarters operations, alternative fuel projects, coal severing processes and hospitals.

Are all eligible entities to apply.

These applications are scored based on a variety of different, factors that we look at.

Where in Kentucky are they located?

Each county may have its own specific designation.

The applications support employers that are smaller.

They also support employers that have higher average hourly wages that offer great benefits, that are offering registered apprenticeships.

So there's some some items, you know, as part of the application that do allow for a more favorable, score for those employers that are really investing in their local workforce and, and their employees.

Every employer is, required to present a training plan with their application.

These are often industry specific skills upgrades, type training, registered apprenticeships, can include some safety and onboarding training, but we really like to see training that will, offer greater opportunity for advancement for our Kentucky employees because they're getting a new skill set or some sort of a certification or qualification that they can put to their, their resume.

The the training can also be for third party educational institution or training provider.

So oftentimes companies need to outsource training to a particular expert in a certain field or industry.

The funds can help to reimburse those cost as well.

And it's always a 50% reimbursement, because we truly believe that the company needs to be, partner with the Commonwealth on this.

So companies are eligible to, to apply for up to 50% of those eligible training cost to come back through the grant or the tax credit program that BFC offers.

Last year at the Bluegrass State Schools Corporation approved almost $10 million in funds and credits to train more than 30,000 Kentuckians.