It is a major project in central Kentucky, the construction of an electric vehicle battery plant in Hardin County.

Blue Oval S.K.

will employ 5000 people.

We take a look at how a nearby community college is getting its students prepared to fill those jobs.

As work continues on blue oval ASC in Glendale.

Attention is already shifting to its future workforce.

Manufacturing is such a growing field and exciting field really, when you think about the advancements in technologies, the advancements in these jobs.

I mean, they truly are great jobs.

A 42,000 square foot training facility is being built on Blue Oval's campus, a partnership with Elizabethtown Community and Technical College.

The thing that we do with our programs is make sure that they align with community and regional needs.

The first few years, the center will focus on onboard training for new hires.

So eventually the facility will turn into more of a traditional program where folks can come in and receive maybe six months, two years of training to prepare them for a job.

Dr. Justin Pate says advanced manufacturing courses have among their highest enrollment numbers.

He calls the Kentucky Community and Technical College System the state's largest provider of workforce training.

So what we do at Elizabethtown Community College is really look at the local regional job base, in this case new manufacturing, and really work with those employers to learn what skills, what traits they need in their employees or what upskilling they need in current employees.

They then customize training programs to teach the skills needed to perform those jobs.

Our graduates, they go right to work.

Professor Timothy Cordova teaches classes in electrical technology.

He has observed firsthand the growing interest in manufacturing careers.

I've been working here for about 21 years, and I can tell you that the advanced manufacturing program, when you put the three of those programs together, the growth of those three programs, it's grown exponentially.

That's thanks in part to the abundance of jobs in the region.

We've got, of course, the distilleries is really popular here in this local area.

And now, of course, with blue oval forward, where we're going to start to see a lot of the automotive manufacturing.

We already have a lot of that, but we're going to really start to see that take off.

As technology advances.

So as the course work.

One of the biggest programs that we've seen growth in is our robotics.

These manufacturing plants that are coming in, they're going to need technicians that know how to fix the robots.

You can't go to an automotive plant or really any manufacturing plant not see robots.

As we're learning the needs of the companies that are coming in, including blue oval.

We'll tailor existing programs if need be.

We'll customize and build new programs.

But for a large part, it's just taking existing programs like mechatronics or industrial maintenance, electricity, and infusing some specific examples into that curriculum.

Cordova says the perspective is changing when it comes to vocational education and learning a skill trade.

VARNEY Those kids that are really good at gaming because though their hand-eye coordination, their ability to use those controllers, it's the same thing that they do when they use these train these robots and program those robots to function.

So we really need all of those different levels of students here.

This college says the next two years will bring thousands more manufacturing jobs to Kentucky and they'll need the workforce to get the job done.

The 1500 acre blue Oval Ask Battery Park will make batteries for Ford and Lincoln vehicles beginning in 2025.