Lack of qualified employees remains a tough hurdle for businesses to overcome. NFIB data shows that small business owners consistently rank this as one of their top concerns, and now Gov. Kim Reynolds is looking for ways to address a, “workforce crisis” in Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register. An estimate from the Georgetown University Center on Education suggests that 68 percent of jobs in 2025 will require education beyond high school.
While serving as lieutenant governor, Reynolds pushed to establish Future Ready Iowa, a group focused on increasing the number of adults in the state with education beyond high school to at least 70 percent.
“We’re going to focus on jobs that actually get people into employment,” said Des Moines Area Community College President Rob Denson according to the Des Moines Register. “Our focus is credentials that mean something.”
For Denson, that means training for jobs in fields like truck driving, healthcare, and manufacturing. Denson also reiterated that the goal set forth by Future Ready Iowa is attainable, and suggested targeting recently released prisoners with nonviolent offenses as a group ripe for education.
