Gov. Nikki Haley is revamping the state's workforce investment board in an effort to push forward better ideas to marry the jobless with employers and lower the state's double-digit unemployment rate.
Haley said Monday she has replaced most of the 31 members of the board, appointing half of the board members from the business community and including four lawmakers, including two from the Upstate.
She said the job of the new board will be to come up with new ways to match employers with those entering the workforce, including training the jobless for skills employers need.
"We've got to connect the dots," she said.
The board sets policy and guides 12 local boards in using more than $50 million from the federal Workforce Investment Act and other federal funds designed to train workers.
The panel also oversees 12 local boards that carry out the program and operate more than 50 "One Stop" centers for job services.
Lewis Gossett, CEO of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, told GreenvilleOnline.com that Haley's actions are "extremely significant."
"By revamping it, by putting more of a focus on private sector needs, she's taken an extremely important step toward addressing a big infrastructure problem," he said.
Gossett said the state's workforce and the skills needed by industry and business have for decades been like "two ships passing in the night."
Not only will there be more of an emphasis on the assessment of a worker's skills, but he said Haley wants officials to determine what skills industry and business need.
"If we're going to be competitive in the kind of projects my members want to bring and grow here, then we've got to get much more sophisticated about how we develop our workforce than we've been," he said. "To our minds, she's taken the right steps."
Haley said the state's latest unemployment rate of 10.9 percent reflects a growing workforce, not only because of college students but also retirees searching for jobs and others.
"Now we have to make sure we are matching the eagerness of those who want to work with the companies that need to have them," she said.
Haley said developing training targeted toward what business needs "cannot happen fast enough."
"We're not going to keep doing things the way we have done them," she said.
"This is all part of saying, 'Been there, done that, not working. What are we going to do to change the way we do things?' We've got to train better so we can help people get work. We've got to be sure that benefits don't become a way of life, but they become a stepping stone toward finding a new job. This is a whole changing culture we are having in South Carolina."
Chairing the board now will be Robert Michael Johnson, CEO and president of Cox Industries Inc. of Orangeburg.
"The new board is full of enthusiastic folks who are ready to tackle this problem," he said. "The numbers take time to come down, but I think we see it already."
Johnson said his panel plans to examine what other states are doing with their workforce training programs and copy models that are successful.
Among the board members are Rep. Tommy Stringer of Greenville, Rep. Michael Forrester of Spartanburg, Greer Mayor Richard Danner, and businessmen Isaac Dickson of Spartanburg and William Thomas Freeland Jr. of Greenville.
Haley also unveiled the new name for the One Stop program, "SC Works."
"It shows an emphasis on what we want to do and that's put people back to work," said John Finan, the outgoing executive director of the state Department of Employment and Workforce.
Officials said the name change and accompanying marketing program cost $468,000 in federal workforce investment funds.
