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Strong Workforce October 08, 2019

The Mississippi Delta has been a leader focusing on the importance of developing Certified Work Ready Communities in its region. A dozen counties in the Mississippi Delta have already obtained work ready certification, and five more counties are working toward becoming certified.

Radial Employees Choose Eau Claire Work Ready for Service Project! October 08, 2019

Radial leaders from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, gathered recently for their day of learning and volunteer work and selected the Eau Claire County Work Ready project as their focus.  Following company training, they learned about Work Eau Claire, its benefits, and later spent the afternoon contacting employers not yet engaged with the project.&nb

Harrison County working to be ACT Work Ready certified October 07, 2019

GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) - Harrison County is now part of the ACT Work Ready Initiative. The program sets up training for high school career-tech students, so they’ll be ready to meet the needs of future employers.

Thirty-five counties in Mississippi are certified, while 48 counties are taking part in the program. Harrison County is one of those pushing towards certification.

"The clock starts ticking, we have two years from today to get those 479 folks and 82 employers we need to be certified,” said Mel Arsenault, Port of Gulfport external affairs

County, city start ‘work ready initiative October 07, 2019

Wise County and Norton have launched an effort to become certified “work ready” communities as judged by an initiative of the data processing company ACT.

According to a press release issued last week, the process began Sept. 24 with a kickoff ceremony at the Virginia Career Works Center in Norton, demonstrating the localities’ “commitment to developing a strong workforce pipeline, desirable to employers, economic developers and current and future citizens of the county.”

PARTNERS FORGING NEW WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE HOLD KICKOFF EVENT October 07, 2019

A strategic gathering of workforce development stakeholders and business and industry leaders to announce a best-practice framework for community-wide implementation of the National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC). The collaborative effort will make Dodge County the second Nebraska county (after Douglas County certified in 2018) to be named an ACT certified Work Ready Community – characterized by a sustainable infrastructure to close skills gaps. Further advantages, such as linking education and workforce development, achieving alignment to economic development and matching people to job opportunities, are also expected outcomes of the initiative.

Podcast: Workforce Summit Preview October 03, 2019

This bonus episode of Ready for Work includes information on the 2019 ACT Workforce Summit in Charlotte, NC, October 28-30. We chat with some of the presenters to give a sneak peek at the conference content. This episode wraps up with feedback from attendees of last year's summit. Visit act.org/workforcesummit for agenda and event info.

 

ACT Work Ready Initiative kicks off in Harrison County October 02, 2019

Today the Harrison County community took a step for the future of workforce ready employees in their community. It was the kickoff for their county wide ‘ACT Work Ready Initiative,’ which more than 25,000 employers are a part of nationwide.

“We can’t all be rocket scientists. Someone has to build the darn things.” That’s how guest-speaker Dr. Ruth Nichols with Alcorn State University described the need for this ‘ACT Work Ready Initiative’ in Harrison County. “It’s going to boost this county to a place that it had no idea it could be economically.”

Podcast: Next Level Apprenticeships and Work-Based Learning September 28, 2019

Work-based or “on-the-job” learning through apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs benefits learners from all education and socioeconomic levels and put them on a fast track to high-wage, nationally portable careers. In this episode of “Ready for Work," we talk to leaders in postsecondary education and business about the use of work-based learning programs at the community level and the personal and economic results that can be gained from creating such programs.

County, CAEDC launch ACT Work Ready Initiative Expedites prepared, local workforce September 26, 2019

Cherokee County and Cherokee Area Economic Development Corporation (CAEDC) announce they have engaged in the process to become a certified ACT Work Ready Community.

Four Tennessee Counties Aided by USDA Grant September 18, 2019

Tennessee's Board of Regents and the National Rural Education Association partnered to secure a new grant to build skills and credentials in the Work Ready Communities participating counties of Chester, Decatur, Henderson and Perry. Important components of the grant project are increasing technical career awareness among K-12 students and increasing dual enrollment opportunities that allow high school students to take classes to earn college credit and technical career certifications at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCATs) serving the area. Resources will be allocated for dual-enrolled students to earn certifications that pave the way for careers in their fields, including the National Career Readiness Certification.

This website reports the ACT® WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificates earned at the county and state level and the progress being made by those participating states and counties in the ACT Work Ready Community initiative. This site only represents data stored in the ACT RegiSTAR™ system, a web-based reporting and management tool for ACT WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificates.

State and national ACT WorkKeys NCRC data runs from January 2006 through , while county-level data is starting from January 2012. State job profile data runs from January 2007 through , while national job profile data reaches back to 1993. Again, please note that county-level ACT WorkKeys NCRC data collection began in January 2012 for WorkKeys Internet Version, and in July 2012 for pencil and paper assessments. State and national certificate totals include historical data prior to 2012.

WorkKeys® assessments are used across the nation, and many states have built their own Career Readiness Certificates based upon WorkKeys assessment results. You will find an asterisk denoting those states. This website will continue to evolve as the first two rounds of participating states give us feedback on what they would like to see -- and based on your feedback, as well.

Please contact us if you have comments, questions or would like to receive more information.