Alaska industry leaders collaborate on solutions to workforce problems

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - On Monday, the Alaska Workforce Investment Board (AWIB) kicked off its two-day conference, Alaska Workforce Development Convening, at the Egan Center in Anchorage.

Over two days, the conference is hosting around 75 Alaska industry leaders who are discussing the struggles they encounter in their specific industry and what they think could be done to solve them.

Cathy Muñoz, the acting commission for the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, said the major industries like tourism, construction, and oil and gas all have representation at the conference.

The conversation kicked off on Monday with industries breaking up into small work sessions. During these sessions, Muñoz said industries are sharing their current and future workforce challenges such as job skills that are missing from their respective industries.

Muñoz said having conversations like this will help break down one of the biggest struggles the state has when finding a solution: silos.

“Our goal is to really break down those silos and bring people together because we have a lot of alignment right now around workforce development,” Muñoz said.

“We know that Alaskans graduating from high school that stay in Alaska can be successful,” she added. “We have a great training network, the University of Alaska and our regional training programs are really state-of-the-art, wonderful programs. If young people leave the state, only about 1 in 4 return. So we want to do a better job of ensuring that young people choose Alaska for their forever home.”

Florian Borowski, the Chief Human Resource Officer for Providence Alaska, is one of those in attendance for the conference.

“At the moment, what we’ve kind of contemplated is how can we create more integrated solutions that match industry needs with training providers,” Borowski said.

He said there are no “singular solutions” to addressing the complicated issues affecting Alaska’s workforce.

“The biggest issues we encounter is our training organizations just don’t have the capacity to meet industry needs. Industry has a significant need, for instance, for RNs across the state. And what I see is that our training organizations are doing their best to be able to meet those needs but I think our Legislature and other bodies need to do more to help bolster their capacity to build more talent.” Borowski said.

Borowski adds that industries need to come together to find solutions that are both specific and tangible.

“I think we just need to all of us roll up our sleeves and determine ways we can help each other,” Borowski said.

Muñoz said all input gathered during the conference will be used when creating an industry workforce plan which will be given to the AWIB by early February.

“It will have specific, actionable items for funding, for policy change and other areas that support workforce development,” Muñoz said of the plan.

Copyright 2023 KTUU. All rights reserved.