Focus on Manatee: Here are resources to help young adults get started in their career

Things are going well for the workforce in Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Unemployment in our two-county region has been hovering around 3 percent and job demand is high, with over 5,100 online job postings for our region in January 2019.

When you dig deeper into these numbers, you’ll see that while our region as a whole has a 3 percent unemployment rate, it jumps to 7 percent for 20- to 24-year-olds — and is higher for 16- to 19-year-olds.

Many fine organizations in our region work with these young adults, many of whom have significant challenges, including disability, single-parenting, low income, lack of a high school diploma and incarceration.

At CareerSource Suncoast, we help as many people as we can, regardless of their age or life circumstances.

With the significant challenges and high rates of unemployment specifically with 18- to 24-year-olds, we are able to concentrate on this group and bring as many resources together as possible to help launch them into great careers.

The problem is that we don’t get a lot of referrals for this age group. These young adults often drop out of school and are difficult to reach. They may not know that we have scholarships, partnerships and many resources to assist.

Many organizations in our region don’t know we offer this. Now that you do, please consider referring those you may know in this group to us for help.

My team works daily with employers who have many job openings unfilled. It’s most often not due to the lack of talent, but the lack of core skills that creates the employment gap.

Last year, CareerSource Florida’s research found that the need for soft skills outnumbers technical skills 4 to 1.

Employers are willing to take on new hires and train them, but when a candidate comes to them lacking soft skills (including communication, attitude, work ethic, problem-solving and time management), it takes longer to train them and therefore costs more and takes their time away from being able to run a business.

CareerSource Suncoast offers Eckerd Connects and its Forward March program, which is an intensive four-week training focused on soft skills. Once our clients are trained and ready to go, we place them in an internship or on-the-job training.

Each participant gets career coaching, access to scholarships and additional guidance. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

The path is different for everyone and one organization with limited resources can’t do it alone. That’s why we are asking all organizations who offer social services as well as employers to be proactive and help this age group. This is our future workforce.

Working together on a local level strengthens the foundation needed for Florida to become a global leader in talent. This is not a one-time idea, a committee or even an event. This can become a part of our culture. It needs to become part of our culture.

We can all impact young adults 18-24 years old with unemployment rates four to five times the low rate our region currently enjoys.

The rising tide has not hit everyone yet and we have a lot of work to do to make an impact. We must be intentional and creative. It’s all about partnerships and collaboration that makes this work.

I invite you to get involved. Give me a call at 941-893-2467.

Ted Ehrlichman, president and CEO of CareerSource Suncoast, writes about workforce issues across the region.