SSTI Digest

A report on employment trends from hiring firm Robert Half found that 2020 presents greater challenges for employers looking to expand their workforce as the country’s labor market is near full employment and job openings remain at high levels. When looking specifically at technology hiring, the report reveals that in a survey of IT hiring decision makers, 86 percent reported challenges finding skilled workers. Such conditions have many states seeking new ways to address the skills gap and develop their workforce to attract or keep business. Several recent efforts are detailed below. Last month, Pennsylvania’s Keystone Economic Development and Workforce Command Center, a public-private partnership created last year by the governor to study workforce development, presented its first report to the Wolf administration. It found five major barriers to employment and a list of 42 recommendations to address those barriers. Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget proposes investing $14 million to support the recommendations, building on a $124 million investment to fully fund PAsmart, career and technical centers, industry partnerships, and apprenticeships to provide job skills training.…

Governors’ focus on initiatives particular to their state in this latest round of state of the state addresses. As SSTI continues to review the speeches for new innovation proposals, we found states continuing to focus on education with more attention on teacher salaries and efforts extending all the way down to pre-K with a recognition that the future workforce is influenced by many factors. Florida is also hoping to grow its aerospace and manufacturing sectors, while Kentucky’s new governor is looking to ag tech and sports betting as new revenue sources. Occupational licensing reform is also a recurring theme in many states this year, along with clean energy and renewable fuels. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attributed the in-migration of residents from other states to the lack of a state income tax in Florida, and said he will continue that policy with the expectation that further growth will ensue. “We have the good fortune to be attracting investment and business activity and have good potential for further growth in aerospace, financial services, health care and manufacturing.” “We have a good [occupational licensing] reform bill pending before…

Knowing that research universities are integral to the innovation in this country, states continue their efforts to build the economy by supporting efforts to move the research from the labs to the market. In our ongoing review of state activities in 2019 (see our stories on free tuition offerings, climate change and clean energy), this week we report on new initiatives launched in 2019 that were focused on commercialization of technology. The following programs represent some of those efforts. Alabama Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony in June for the state’s Invention to Innovation Center (I²C) on the campus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The I²C is a regional initiative that will serve as the focal point for incubation, education and support for entrepreneurs across a 15-county region in northern Alabama and south central Tennessee. The program seeks to foster, promote and accelerate the commercialization of technology-based ventures through incubation, co-working, mentorship, funding, and strategic support. The I²C is focused on stimulating the growth of both new and existing regional science and…

As a way to help encourage innovation and workforce development in Northern Indiana, a five-year, $42.4 million grant from the Lilly Endowment will support the Labs for Industry Futures and Transformation (LIFT) Network. An effort of the University of Notre Dame and the South Bend – Elkhart Regional Partnership, the LIFT Network will launch iNDustry Labs at Notre Dame’s Innovation Park, a burgeoning innovation district on the campus’ southern end. This is the sixth region in Indiana where the Lilly Endowment has made an economic development commitment. The program will “serve as a front door to the University for industry partners and others in the LIFT Network to more effectively connect industry and community partners with faculty expertise, students, research capabilities and the university’s entrepreneurship and technology innovation hub,” according to a press release. As part of the grant, five other developments throughout the region will offer training in advanced industries, leveraging partnerships with K-12 schools and regional colleges and universities. The grant will also help launch the LIFT Catalyst Fund, which will…

This week, we see broadband investment in Indiana; education initiatives that begin with pre-K and extend beyond high school in a number of states; lifelong learning approaches; apprenticeships; climate change and green energy initiatives in Nevada and Washington; and more on governors’ agendas. As governors across the country continue to deliver their state of the state addresses to their legislatures and constituents, SSTI monitors the speeches for news of innovation related initiatives. This week we bring you news of innovation funding from governors in Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, Rhode Island and Washington. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb gave his address Jan. 15 before the General Assembly, highlighting among other things the state’s growing tech ecosystem. His plan is to take the state to “the next level”: “But to stay ahead of our competition and keep breaking those jobs records, we must keep sharpening our economic development tools to give us the flexibility to attract more capital investment and more people to locate here. …” “… But all students should be doing their…

Action toward improving the availability and speed of broadband in rural areas is emerging as an early theme in 2019, continuing activity from 2018. Oregon, Washington and the USDA all announced new initiatives last month. In mid-December, the USDA announced the availability of $600 million in grants and loans to support improvement of broadband accessibility across rural America. Funding is split into three equal pools. Up to $200 million may be awarded as grants (deadline for proposals is April 29); $200 million may be awarded as low-interest loans (applications due June 28); and $200 million may be distributed in a mix of grants and loans (proposals are due May 29).  Projects funded through this initiative must serve communities with fewer than 20,000 people with no broadband service or where service is slower than 10 megabits per second (mbps) download and 1 mbps upload.

Faced with one of the largest drawdowns in defense spending in American history, the Defense Manufacturing Assistance Program (DMAP) targeted affected companies and communities across Michigan, Ohio and Indiana for assistance. The program aimed to support economic stabilization and diversification across the region during the five-year period from 2013 to 2018. After five years of projects, an evaluation of DMAP found that for every one dollar that went into the program, companies obtained an average of $18 new dollars in additional revenue. The effort was funded primarily by the Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment and led by the University of Michigan in partnership with Ohio State and Purdue. DMAP practitioners worked with more than 300 companies over this time, which led to approximately 20,000 jobs created and retained – including 662 new jobs – and $183 million in new sales. The program also helped drive innovation in these companies, resulting in 139 new products and 26 commercialized technologies. Manufacturers eligible for DMAP support were those that experienced at least a 5 percent decline in sales, production or…

While job openings surpassed 7.1 million in August, companies across the country still are struggling to attract staff with relevant skills. To address this issue, states are developing new workforce development efforts to address the increased demand. These efforts have taken many different approaches including grants to communities, free online resources, mentorship programs, or stronger partnerships with industry. While these efforts may be diverse in their processes, they share commonalities, such as bringing together all stakeholders (e.g., industry, academia, government, nonprofits, and local workforce development boards) and providing those services locally across the state, or by leveraging online platforms.  Such efforts are reflected in new programs described below in Indiana, North Carolina and South Carolina.  

The ability of states to deliver the services promised to its residents relies on their fiscal soundness. With most states beginning their fiscal year in July, SSTI has reviewed the current fiscal standing for each state and here presents a snapshot of our findings. Most states ended their fiscal year with a surplus and continue to recover from the Great Recession, with a growing economy and job gains. However, they face continuing demands on their budgets, with expanded Medicaid payments and the growing opioid crisis confronting nearly every state. Such decisions affect the state’s ability to fund innovation efforts, from the amount of support available for higher education and STEM programs, to funding for entrepreneurship, and forging public private partnerships to strengthen innovation programming that the private sector cannot fully support. Our analysis found that some states that rely on the energy sector to fund their spending priorities continue to struggle, while others are already factoring in anticipated revenues as a result of new Supreme Court rulings involving gaming and online sales tax collections.

SSTI’s Tech Talkin’ Govs feature returns as governors across the country roll out their state of the state addresses. We review each speech for comments relevant to the innovation economy, and bring you their words directly from their addresses. In this second installment, we present excerpts from governors in Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Washington. Workforce development and/or apprenticeship programs receive attention in all of the below excerpts. The Alabama governor said she is seeking an additional $50 million for higher education, while the Georgia governor talked about reorganizing their technical college system. In Indiana the governor is challenging the state economic development department to create thousands of new jobs and said in the first quarter the state will begin to make strategic investments to build and support more innovation and entrepreneurship through the already established $250 million Next Level Indiana Trust Fund.

Indiana Gov. Gary Holcomb announced two new workforce development grants program as part of the state’s Next Level Jobs initiative. Through this new initiative, the state will commit more than $20 million over the next two years to help state residents find careers in high-demand, high-wage jobs as quickly as possible. The Workforce Ready Grant program will support tuition costs for adults to earn career certificates in high-growth sectors including: advanced manufacturing; construction; health; life sciences; logistics; and, information technology. The grants will be made to adult learners for industry-focused certificate programs at Ivy Tech Community College and Vincennes University campuses throughout the state. The Indiana Department of Workforce Development's (DWD) Employer Training Grant program will help employers offset the costs of training new employees in the aforementioned high-growth industries. Grants of up to $2,500 per new employee will be made to qualifying companies to train and retain new hires. DWD will launch a pilot of the grant program in 2018 and 2019, paid for with $10 million in Career and Technical Education…

Over the last several months, economic development organizations, universities, and their partners have announced new efforts to create the building blocks for entrepreneurial development in rural communities. Examples include i2e announcing new efforts to expand entrepreneurial support services to rural communities in Oklahoma and three Indiana universities partnering to support startup growth in rural regions across the state. These efforts are intended to leverage the existing skills and resources of these organizations and reformulate them for regions typically left behind by the field. Oklahoma i2e announced the expansion and reformulation of its Venture Assessment Program (VAP) to serve entrepreneurship in Oklahoma’s rural and Native American communities, including the tribal jurisdictional areas of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Muscogee (Creek) tribes. The VAP helps businesses explore the product/market fit of a new business concept that concludes with a report that recommends resources, programs and potential funding sources that will best suit the needs of the startup. The effort will serve 39 of the state’s 77 counties in Eastern…