Secretary of the Alabama Department of Workforce Greg Reed is promoting the work of his agency when it comes to growing the economy across Alabama’s 67 counties.
Reed, who spent 14 years in the Alabama Senate and served as Senate President Pro Tem, was tapped by Governor Kay Ivey earlier this year to lead the newly-created Alabama Department of Workforce.
During a recent appearance on “Longshore and McKnight”, Reed discussed the gains being made in the state through the transformation from the Alabama Department of Labor to the Alabama Department of Workforce.
“The mission is that we want Alabama’s workers to be the best trained in America,” Reed said, “the most well educated in the nation, and that there. Be more of them tomorrow than there are today. We’ve got to grow the number of people that are in the workforce so our economy can continue to grow.”
Reed said one of the best ways to accomplish that goal is expanding the access to apprenticeship programs in the state.
“A couple of initiatives right off the bat that we’re started on,” Reed explained. “One is apprenticeship programs, folks that want to do better in their careers, many of them need to learn and earn at the same time they don’t have an opportunity to quit paying the car payments or taking care of the kids, to go back and get additional skill sets. We’ve got several apprenticeship programs that are continuing to grow. At the moment, Alabama, in my office of apprenticeship, we have relationships with 517 different Alabama companies that are running apprenticeship programs that we’re managing to help people get skills and be paid while they’re doing it. And one of the latest things that we’ve done just in the last few months is an idea of youth apprenticeships.”
He also discussed how the state is working on new transportation programs to help those who need helping getting to their jobs.
“When you look at workforce obstacles,” he said, “things that keep people from working? Okay, what are the categories they fall into health care, housing, child care, okay, transportation, those are the big four, not just in Alabama, but nationwide. We’re trying to address those issues with transportation programs. I’m navigating a new option that may be a collaboration with the Alabama Department of Transportation.”
Reed said they will continue to address and expand opportunities for access to childcare as well.
“One of those differences is a lot of women, ladies that went home to take care of children, they didn’t stay in the workforce and then did not come back to the workforce after the pandemic was over,” he said. “Can we offer an incentive for childcare options to where these folks come back to the workforce and are once again able to be productive in our economy? Statistically, it shows that that’s one of the challenges, and being able to offer childcare is a huge topic. It’s very important, not only to mom and the family, but also to the business that’s trying to have these very skilled workers be back in the workforce.”
Reed emphasized that all of these programs are about helping grow Alabama’s economy.
“And if we’re going to grow the economy, we must be able to grow the workforce,” he said. “And so bringing these very capable folks together from multiple states to look at this initiative just adds to what we’re trying to do. The more noise, the more focus, the more push that we have on training workers, engaging people in the workforce, the louder this topic becomes, the more the outcomes are, and the better it is for what we’re doing in our economy.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
