Well, Governor Joe Lombardo made a strong statement about the state of workforce development efforts during his State of the State address, saying, quote, Right now we are wasting money, but more importantly, we are wasting time and getting all Nevadans the job opportunities they deserve.

End quote.

He then went on to outline his plan to create an office of workforce.

So where do our efforts to develop a workforce for a changing Nevada economy stand?

Joining us to talk about it are Stacey Bostwick, director of workforce development for the Governor's Office of Economic Development.

And go ahead and Bill Arnt, chief business development officer for the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance.

Both of you have a wealth of knowledge and information.

Let's talk a little bit about before we start your department and what you do.

Sure.

I'm the director of workforce development for.

Go ahead.

Much easier to say.

And I've been there for five years and I think I have the best job at.

Go ahead.

Because I live at the intersection of workforce and economic development, bringing both the employers and the employees together.

And LPGA, you guys work closely together.

Let's talk about your experience while you've only been there for a few months.

But you again, you've been with the city of Las Vegas for many, many years.

Yes.

Thank you.

Really glad to be on the show today, working with new employers that are looking at Las Vegas and coming into the market.

One of the first questions they I going to find my workers?

Where am I going to have access to talent?

How much is there?

What am I going to have to pay them?

What about turnover?

So working with folks like Stacy at GO, it is really important as we're starting to work with new employers that are first looking at coming into the market.

And let's talk about we mentioned the governor and his plan to create he wants to create an office of workforce.

During his campaign, this was also something that was big.

He did mention this and said it's become increasingly clear that we need to diversify our economy from just gaming and tourism, Nevada's to historically dominant economic sectors.

We know that, like northern Nevada did with the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.

It's time for the rest of the state to look at new industries like manufacturing and technologies in order to bring new industries to the state.

Nevada needs a skilled and trained workforce.

So what needs to be done so that we do have that skilled and trained workforce?

Basically want to start?

Sure.

You know, the governor has been a strong proponent of economic development.

And I think the word that we like to use in our office a lot is resilience and and providing people the opportunity to have consistency.

You know, when we go through economic downturns and our emerging industries and growing that so we have parity across industry is an important piece of that.

And I just mentioned northern Nevada when we were preparing for this segment.

You also mentioned there's a lot of activity going up in northern Nevada.

What's going on up there?

Well, lots of great things.

I think one thing I always like to talk about is when employers work together with education institutions.

Right.

And so we talk about how does that really affect workforce development.

A great example of a partnership is with Panasonic and Truckee Meadows Community College.

Panasonic is building a new kind of headquarters on Plum Lane, and they're dedicating a piece of that space for Truckee Meadows to come in and provide training to the community.

So those kinds of things are really innovative and great for employees and employers in the valley.

And let's talk about this, because he did mention again that we need to diversify our economy more than just gaming and tourism.

I feel that's already being done.

You're the expert on this.

What's going on here in Las Vegas, in southern Nevada?

It's being done, but we need to do more of it.

So we're focused on a lot of industries to expand upon our core industry of gaming and hospitality.

That will always be our core industry.

But how do we diversify and expand?

So we're focused on advanced manufacturing.

We're focused on clean tech.

We're focused on fintech and corporate headquarters.

And as an example, feeding off of what Stacey said, our university partners, our higher education partners are listening.

We were talking with President Whitfield of UNLV, who is on our board of directors about this graduating class.

This upcoming year.

And I think it would surprise people to know that UNLV is forecast to graduate almost the same number of graduates from their engineering school as the College of Hospitality for the four year undergraduate degrees.

So today's you and Ivy is very different than it will be from five years ago.

And I think you can say that across all of higher education in Nevada.

And let's talk about how you are working with the other institutions, higher ed institutions here in southern Nevada as well.

Absolutely.

One of the best resources we have within go in is a tool that we call the Wynn Fund.

And that's a really neat opportunity for us to bring employers and educators together and for them to kind of say, we want to scale up a program, right?

We need this.

We have employers saying we need advanced manufacturing training programs in two years and four year colleges on the Nevada UNLV in Nevada State.

Who that might be?

And we're able to actually provide funding and resources for them to do that.

And let's talk a little bit about what else is going on here in southern Nevada.

I know you have some companies coming in.

You have partners that you bring in.

I was on your social media yesterday.

You were talking about some of your new investors.

What's going on over at LPGA?

Yeah, I'll give you an example of a recent employer we recruited to Las Vegas.

CAA is an aviation training program.

They opened up just within the past year and a half to two years.

They have a training program for business, aviation pilots.

And when they're up and running at full speed, they were able to train 2500 pilots annually.

And that's one of the things we're looking at and focused on, is how do we learn and know about all of the workforce training programs throughout our community, not just the ones that are receiving public funding, but the private funding.

We have a lot of wonderful training programs that are really national models here in Las Vegas.

Let's talk about some of the positive aspects of bringing your business here to Las Vegas and southern Nevada, in Nevada in general.

And then also some of the challenges that you see are state facing right now.

Stacey, I'll take a stab at that first.

One challenge is also an opportunity.

Our unemployment rate is one of the highest, I believe, the highest in the nation for a major metropolitan area.

But there are two sides of that coin.

Even though there are a lot of folks in our community struggling, when we talk to a company and we look at our available workforce and labor supply and how easy it is to staff these new positions, whether it be advanced manufacturing, whether it be in financial services or other companies.

They actually have a bigger labor pool here than other markets our size.

So that coin kind of flips both ways.

It could be an advantage because there are national labor shortages everywhere.

It can be easier to hire here and find skilled workers here that are really hungry and want to do good work.

And I know that in speaking with Deborah Solt, with PBS here and she mentioned it is about keeping our brightest here in southern Nevada and making sure that they do stay there.

Here with programs like the ones that we offer here at Vegas, PBS.

And and what are we doing to make sure that we do continue to retain those workers here in southern Nevada?

So I think one of the things that we're working on and go and I and I like to think about it is availability and capacity.

And so do we have the programs available to align with the jobs.

And it's like a one plus one, you know, situation because, you know, we're producing engineers to to Bill's point, but we don't have companies for them to land here.

That talent has no choice but to leave the state.

And so it really is aligning the resources and making sure we have programs available for the jobs that are here.

And so we're looking a lot at manufacturing and logistics.

We're doing a deep dive right.

And one of the things that we find is we have big gaps in the infrastructure.

We have a lot of really great programs, but we don't have that overarching kind of system to connect all those pieces.

And there is still work that that needs to be done to fill in those gaps.

And let's talk about the impact the pandemic had on our workforce.

Yeah, that's another place where I would say resilience is such a big piece of it.

And one of the the tools or systems that we worked on that go ahead was a platform that we called Skills Match for that because one of the things that we recognized is that we have this amazing workforce.

But workforce development is dynamic, right?

We're not we're not a job title.

You know, we're a person with a set of skills and those skills can be used in different places.

And so I think for a lot of folks who worked in the same industry or same job for so long, it was hard to break out of that idea of what else can I do?

So if you focus on skills versus job title, how can I do that?

And so, you know, the workforce area is evolving.

I think that's one of the neatest things about workforce.

We're moving around, whether or not degrees matter, what skills matter, experience matters, right?

And so giving people the tools to say, I have all these things and look at all these doors that open up for me because I have these skills.

Now, you did mention unemployment and concerns with possible recession.

The way the economy is right now.

Yeah, I think we're really focused on what's in front of us.

We do talk to companies all the time.

Right now, we're working with over 80 companies that are looking at relocating to Las Vegas and Southern Nevada.

And so there is a slowdown in a lot of industry.

Everyone reads the headlines.

I read the headlines.

Layoffs at Google and a lot of big tech layoffs in other industries.

But there still is a lot of investment and what I would call emerging industries, battery manufacturing, fintech companies that are expanding, industries that are expanding.

And how do we prepare ourselves for these jobs of the future?

Working with partners like Stacy Gold, Governor's Office of Workforce Innovation, really important so that we're lined up to capture some of this new business.

Now, you mentioned 80, 80 different companies.

That's a lot and it's exciting to hear that.

Are there some companies you're like, This will be great here in Las Vegas, All of them.

But is there one that really just sticks out?

Yeah, I think that's one of the challenges, is we have to find those companies that are a good fit.

We're not for everyone.

So we do have some constraints with the amount of land we have for business and industry Industrial lands.

Water is an increasing challenge.

We're spending more time than ever working with the water authority on trying to figure out responsible use of water so we can accommodate high water users, but not if they're going to be consumptive water users where they use the water and then it is not returned to the source.

So we're being more thoughtful about what companies are a good fit, but we're really excited for the future.

A lot of different companies across all, all industry.

And let's talk about the future.

You have a workforce summit with Go in.

Why is that so important?

Let's talk about that happening in the summer, right?

Yes, it's scheduled to happen in the summer.

I think what's most important is everything leading up to this summit.

So one of the things that we've been working on with go it and all our partners is trying to have an accurate inventory of all the public and private workforce training programs.

Stacy mentioned the change of work in the nature of work that some jobs require for your degree.

Some jobs require certificates or technical skills.

How can we inventory all of those training programs across our community?

We have some of the largest training programs in the nation.

The Carpenters union has a facility that trains workers from across the country.

They have two hotels just to serve this training facility.

There are countless number of stories that we hear about these large training schools, training not just Las Vegas, but people on a regional basis.

How can we leverage that to make sure, one, the community knows about it?

And two, we can work with business and industry to connect those workers to new employers as they're coming into the market.

And I do need to ask you both, because I think it's also important Nevada legislature happening right now, any bills that you're really keeping a close eye on right now?

I'm not paying attention so much of the bills as I am following the money.

And I think this session is showing just a large increased investment and all the way from K-12 into post-secondary education.

And those investments just reap so many rewards for workforce.

Bill.

Yeah, I would add I'm less following the bills, but more working with the people, working very closely with Go at all our partners across the region.

It's been a delight to work with Governor Lombardo and his administration.

Our President CEO Tina Quigley, was on the governor's transition team for economic development.

We're working very closely with the GOA director, Tom Burns, and his whole team.

So really, how do we collaborate and work together on solutions?

There are a number of bills out there, but they're going to go through a lot of changes.

So we want to really see kind of what the outcome of that is, to know what we're working with.

And the real quick, Las Vegas perspective also coming up real quick.

Yes.

Coming up, it's a great event where we essentially go over everything that's happening in our regional economy.

It's coming up and open to our investors and members and it's going to be a great event.

Both of you, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for what you do.