MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Workforce Board had its inaugural meeting Wednesday with the board’s chair championing private-public partnership models as being essential to help improve the state’s low labor participation rate.
Established after the passage of the Alabama Workforce Transformation Act earlier this year, the new board and its executive committee consist of workforce experts and industry leaders, including the board’s chair, Jeff Peoples, president and CEO of Alabama Power Company.
“I have touted heavily that I think public-private partnerships are where we come together and fix this,” Peoples said, referring to the state’s labor participation rate of 57.5%, among the lowest in the country.
“Industry is going to define what they need and who they’re going to employ, and so if you have both bookends of that, you’ve got to figure out how you train and what you do to run it all.”
Alabama lawmakers and leaders have poured significant time and resources into working to address the state’s low labor participation rate, including the establishment of a Labor Shortage Commission last year, and the passage of several bills this year aimed at removing barriers to employment.
Among those bills is the Alabama Workforce Transformation Act, which, beyond establishing the new Workforce Board, will rebrand the Department of Labor as the Department of Workforce, and consolidate some of the state’s workforce agencies under one umbrella.
Gov. Kay Ivey, whose office led the charge on the workforce package of bills earlier this year, attended the meeting Wednesday.
“We sit here today staring at an old problem, workforce development and workforce participation that is in dire need of a fresh approach,” Ivey said.
“This is a big lift for state government, this is a place where change has resisted, and status quo often prevails, so you all, it’s imperative we get this right, that the new Alabama Department of Workforce is established on a strong foundation.”
Also present at the meeting was Marty Redden, the state’s new labor secretary, who Ivey appointed last month after his predecessor, Fitzgerald Washington, stepped down after ten years of service.
Redden said the department is actively engaged in implementing changes required to adhere to the passage of the Alabama Workforce Transformation Act, which went into effect Oct. 1.
“I am excited about the transformation, I can see the direction of the value to the citizens, which we’re all here for,” Redden said. “The agency is moving progressively forward, it’s moving very strongly, we are making some adjustments to responsiveness and clarity on what we provide the citizens and employers.”
Speaking with Alabama Daily News after the meeting, Peoples expanded on the significant role he believed private-public partnerships should play in improving the state’s labor participation rate.
“I think that it’s unfair for industry to expect government to fix everything, and so I think that all of us together at the table working on things, we’re better together,” Peoples said.
“I think us being at the table – industry being at the table – I just think it’s paramount to success. I think that model works on most everything if we all come together on whatever side of the table you’re sitting on.”
The next meeting of the Workforce Board will be on Oct. 31.