Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber are continuing their joint effort to remove the barriers preventing many Mahoning Valley residents from joining the workforce.
Staff with the organizations gave an update on Goodwill’s latest Good Community Podcast on the Community Needs Assessment and how organizations, businesses and individuals can work together to get more people in the region employed.
The podcast is available at youngstownradioreadingservice.buzzsprout.com.
Brenda Linert, the Regional Chamber’s Director of Community Impact, and Ron Selak, Communications Manager, joined Carol Holmes-Chambers, Community Solutions Director for Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries, at Goodwill’s headquarters in Liberty for a deep dive into the key findings of the Community Needs Assessment, work happening now and what’s planned to tear down the barriers and increase the region’s workforce participation rate.
“If we are going to get out of this, it is going to be together. Collaboration is key. We really need to think innovatively and creatively about what we can do together. Taking a ‘we over me’ approach is what we really need to focus on,” Holmes-Chambers said.
The organizations joined forces in 2024 to study the workforce needs in the region and what is keeping a disproportionate number of Valley residents from work. The study solidified what was mostly known but provided the foundation to begin to address those top barriers, identified as transportation, childcare, mental health and substance abuse issues and life skills/soft skills. The data was collected through a series of surveys, interviews and focus groups and paired with data from the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Labor.
“I think people want to work, but these barriers are real and some people who could work aren’t because they just do not know how to get over these barriers. With the help of employers, stakeholders, the Regional Chamber, Goodwill and other organizations, we can overcome these issues and get a lot more people into the workforce,” Linert said.
To help power the work, the PNC Foundation contributed a $50,000 workforce development grant to the Regional Chamber. The Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley and the Youngstown Foundation contributed funds to help Goodwill’s efforts