SUNY Jamestown Community College has joined forces with two other SUNY colleges to bolster the regional manufacturing industry.
JCC, Alfred State College, and Genesee Community College established a collaborative marketing initiative called WNY Works in response to the crisis Western New York employers face in finding and hiring skilled manufacturing workers. The goal is to attract more students to study and pursue rewarding manufacturing careers.
“JCC is excited to partner with Alfred State and Genesee Community College in fulfilling the mission of WNY Works,” said Dr. Kirk Young, JCC’s vice president of Student Affairs. “We stay in constant communication with our regional employers’ needs and understand the skills graduates must have to land rewarding jobs. This project continues to power our dedication to training our local workforce and supporting our manufacturers.”
The National Association of Manufacturers estimates that 2.1 million jobs will be open by 2030. Western New York manufacturers employ more than 60,000 workers who earn an average of $85,474 annually. However, 77 percent report that they cannot find skilled professionals to fill open positions.
In Western New York, annual wages include $60,800 for computer and electronics manufacturing jobs, $79,300 for transportation equipment work, $60,100 for fabricated metal workers, and $60,460 for mechatronics technicians, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. More career options can be viewed at WNYworks.org/advanced-manufacturing.
The three colleges, spread across the Western New York region, offer dozens of certificate and associate degree programs in manufacturing that can help workers retrain and upskill to gain better-paying jobs and a more fulfilling future.
Thanks to a grant from the Wilson Foundation, manufacturing opportunities offered by JCC, Alfred State, and GCC are shared on the recently-launched WNYworks.org website. Through the website, brochures, social media, digital advertising, and videos to showcase graduate success stories, the goal is to increase the number of skilled workers in Western New York who are needed to fuel the local economy.
This project has focused on empowering the colleges to generate brand awareness, drive applications and enrollment, and broaden their share of the market for manufacturing.
The colleges have enlisted the expertise of Interact Communications, a leader in student recruitment for two-year degrees, to implement a regional marketing strategy. Advertising has begun on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, Google, Spotify, Pandora, TikTok, and Amazon OTT with the aim of driving traffic to WNYworks.org and connecting Western New Yorkers to a variety of manufacturing career paths.