NEW ORLEANS – Louisiana's FastStart workforce training program has been named No. 1 in the U.S. for an unprecedented eight years by Business Facilities magazine in its 13th annual Rankings Report.
Business Facilities reports, “This year, we have once again named Louisiana’s FastStart as the top-ranked program in the nation in our Workforce Training Leaders category. Since its inception in 2008, FastStart has trained nearly 26,000 individual workers in Louisiana and delivered almost 400,000 hours of training in sectors ranging from manufacturing and software development to distribution and customer contact centers for 175 companies…. Louisiana’s apprenticeship model uses public funds for the training as part of a performance-based incentive package that ensures companies produce the agreed-upon capital investment and job creation targets in order to be eligible. FastStart also forms project-specific public-private partnerships with two-year and four-year colleges to provide curricula and training services that support employer growth at client companies. In addition to 35 high schools in Louisiana offering certification for manufacturing for the first time this past school year, a new, six-month “Operator Apprenticeship” program at the community and technical colleges combine three days in the classroom with two days in on-the-job training at three companies in the state so far.”
Business Facilities also ranked Louisiana first for cybersecurity growth potential, third for best infrastructure, seventh for the cost of doing business, ninth for Economic Growth Potential, ninth for export leaders and tenth for lowest industrial electricity rates.
About cybersecurity, Business Facilities reports, “In the next few years, the emerging cybersecurity sector is expected to create more than a million new jobs in the U.S. Louisiana, Utah and Michigan, are the top-ranked states, respectively, in our new Cybersecurity Growth Potential category. Each is making maximum use of its higher education resources to meet the growing demand for high-tech workers with cyber skills that have been specified by government backed initiatives to rapidly expand and improve U.S. cyber defense capabilities.
Louisiana has established a leadership position by leveraging its impressive tech-oriented universities in cooperation with U.S. military assets based in the Pelican State.”
