What is a Workforce Investment Board?
Throughout Oregon, local communities are struggling to thrive. Businesses need workers to help them be productive and grow. People need jobs that will sustain them and their families in a changing economy. Seems simple enough. But everywhere you look, businesses are struggling to find the right employees. People aren't unlocking opportunities for good jobs and upward advancement. Things just aren't working the way they used to.
SOWIB (Southwestern Oregon Workforce Investment Board) is one of nine local organizations in Oregon formed to address these concerns. We are a business-led 501(c)(3) partnership serving Coos, Curry and Douglas counties, and devoted to identifying and addressing the workforce challenges in our area.
Our primary goal is to build a workforce system that is flexible, customer-focused and responsive to local needs.
How we do this:
Sector Strategies: We use local labor market data with input from business and community leaders to identify workforce issues and convene public and private sector partners to create new solutions.
WorkSource: We invest resources into the public workforce system to help job seekers get the skills they need to find work and to fill job vacancies with a skilled workforce.
Youth Programs: We invest in programs that serve low income youth with complex barriers to employment, exposing them to career opportunities, training, and support to prepare for post-secondary education and employment.
Current Workers: We help companies hire and train new and existing workers through current worker training and our On-The-Job training program.
Strategic Planning: Based on data and feedback from stakeholders, we create a strategic plan to align and leverage the various diffused efforts to workforce challenges in our community.
Accountability: We track and publish data to know how well community workforce programs are achieving goals in order to continually improve outcomes.
Resource Development: We work with those who want to make a difference to find new or align existing resources to support promising ideas.
We are committed to economic prosperity and thriving communities in the region we serve. We are dedicated to continuous improvement. We are accountable for providing high-performing systems that yield a maximum return on investment. We owe this to our communities as stewards of the public and private resources we receive.
You can help us achieve our mission by:
Joining one of our Sector Partnerships
Providing internships, job shadows, or other work experiences to adults and youth
Partnering with us to identify new opportunities and resources towards the mission
Donating resources
Together we can make a difference!