Jeff Ayres • January 16, 2011
Jobs market forcing many to retrain
Long workdays holding down two jobs were wearing on Schevalian Short's health and costing him time with his children.
The 35-year-old Florence man said his thoughts increasingly turned to his time hanging out at his brother's auto repair shop and watching him fix an array of car problems.
"Working an 18-hour day wasn't doing anything for me," Short said while he and fellow students huddled around a car undergoing repairs as part of Hinds Community College's automotive technician certification program.Short, who began classes last week, and many others are learning new skills in an economy that has forced people to re-evaluate their careers.
"If you can't find employment, you've got to get a skill," says Chad Stocks, Hinds Community College's associate dean of career and technical education.
Finding a job in Mississippi remains thorny, with the state posting a 9.8 percent unemployment rate in November, above the national rate that month of 9.3 percent.
Stocks says Hinds has seen a 10 percent increase in the past year in enrollment in its job-training programs as the two-year college's overall enrollment has climbed even more, driven greatly, he says, by the economic downturn.
Short said those economic woes convinced him to pursue a career where he could be his own boss.
The two-year program teaches the ins and outs of diagnosing and repairing cars, trucks and SUVs to try to ensure years of steady performance.
Those who work their way up to supervisor-level jobs overseeing mechanics, installers or repairers can earn a starting salary of $33,219 and make as much, on average, as $51,471 annually in Mississippi, according to the state Department of Employment Security.
Pearl resident Corey Lee lost his job as a trucking company dispatcher in Memphis in 2008.
Like Short, he often did his own car repairs, and he learned the basics while helping out at his grandfather's used-car lot.
He moved to the area to be closer to his parents and enrolled in Hinds' auto-tech program last August.
One month later, he found work repairing cars at an area dealership.
"I might do something at work, and we'll go over it here in class, and vice versa," Lee said.
Many of the people taking in new skills have years of working experience.
Hinds CC auto-tech instructor Steve Miller said 15 of the 50 students are over 25 years old.
"A lot of college graduates come in here," he said. "They make great students. They know how to study and they realize they don't have a lot of time to make a (career) decision."
Jayne Hust said people of all ages are returning to school or otherwise trying to improve themselves by learning the technology skills essential in today's business world.
"You've got to have these kinds of skills just to live in the world," said Hust, who teaches computer programs at Holmes Community College's Ridgeland campus.
Linda Gordon, a student in Hust's class, says she last took an Excel course 10 years ago - practically a lifetime in the technology world.
So the 33-year-old Nissan employee decided to learn the program's inner workings anew.
"You want to enhance your skills, learn what's changed," she said last week during a break from assembling spreadsheets.
A key in providing work force training in Mississippi in recent years has been a steady funding source, no small accomplishment in a state that has had to eliminate or scale back many programs amid budget cuts.
For the last five years, the state Workforce Investment Board has been able to allocate an average of $21 million per year toward work force training, says board member Jay Moon.
The U.S. Department of Labor allowed the state to divert the money toward jobs training. It otherwise would have had to be used for other purposes, said Moon, who also heads the Mississippi Manufacturers Association.
The funds are split among the state's various community colleges, who assess their respective areas' biggest skill needs and engage professionals to help train students.
"It's been absolutely critical," Moon says. "Before we were able to do that, community colleges had to go before the Legislature" individually to request training dollars, with varying results.
But Mississippi's high poverty and unemployment rates can make even the most basic computer skills needed to get jobs hard to come by.
The Mississippi Department of Employment Security and Canadian technology nonprofit Digital Opportunity Trust have joined to implement the nonprofit's TeachUp! program, in which paid interns help job-seekers prepare electronic job applications and resumes as well as other computer skills.
Digital Opportunity Trust has worked extensively along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, mainly at schools and community centers."We needed to reach the work force as well," said Nuria Arias, the trust's executive director. "What we need are the opportunities."
MDES also offers language software that enables work-seekers to learn Spanish and English. It also has "individual training accounts," scholarships that allow recipients to learn new skills.
Stocks says job prospects are picking up as the economy thaws.
He said many of the auto program's graduates find positions with area dealerships and repair shops.
Other skills in high demand, include electrical technology, small-engine repair and welding, he said.
In Mississippi, entry-level electricians can earn about $29,000 per year, while starting welders can make about $25,800, according to MDES.
While schools and other institutions offer training in specific fields, Sara Jane Hope wants to develop "the people skills" essential in finding success and becoming a leader in any type of work.
After 11 years specializing in work force training and development for a local food-service company, the area resident has launched Positive Dimensions, which seeks to sharpen people's leadership, teamwork and attitude skills.
She hosted a session at a local WIN Job Center last week and has similar events scheduled with several community colleges. She also plans to work with clients one-on-one.
Hope said she wants to get a sense of what clients enjoyed and didn't enjoy about their most recent jobs, saying that will help point them in a more fruitful direction.
