Tahlequah Regional Meeting Continues Workforce Tour

Governor Fallin, business leaders talk about addressing skills gap, other employment issues

Oklahoma City (September 1, 2015) – The State Chamber of Oklahoma today hosted the third of nine regional meetings featuring Governor Mary Fallin to talk with business leaders and the education community in Tahlequah and eastern Oklahoma about problems they face finding skilled workers. The meetings are a partnership between the State Chamber, the Oklahoma Educated Workforce Initiative (OEWI) and Governor Fallin’s Oklahoma Works program.

“Most employers tell me they have good, high-paying jobs that sit empty because, too often, we are graduating students without the skills needed for the modern workforce,” said State Chamber President & CEO Fred Morgan. “We need to change that in order to make sure Oklahoma’s economy continues to grow. We want to thank Governor Fallin for starting the conversation between the business community and educators about how to address the state’s current and future workforce needs. We look forward to even more engagement by business leaders in the meetings to come.”

During the meeting at Northeastern State University’s Event Center, Governor Fallin told attendees about the skills gap the state is facing where 54-percent of the current workforce has education beyond high school while 77-percent of the jobs in ten years will require education beyond high school. “If we don’t close the skills gap, our high school graduates won’t be able to find a job, our employers won’t be able to find employees and we won’t be able to recruit new employers to the state,” Fallin said. “We have educators, business leaders and state agencies all here to talk about how to keep our state strong and improve our talent pipeline.”

John Barton, president of BancFirst in Muskogee, also spoke as the Key Economic Network Business Champion for the Eastern region as chosen by Governor Fallin. “As a business person, I am interested in workforce and the workforce pipeline,” he said. “We have a huge task in front of us and must work to finish strong.”

There are six more regional meetings scheduled around the state through the end of October:

For more information go to www.okstatechamber.com/events.

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