Helping transport high school students to and from their jobs and offering tax incentives for companies who hire them were ideas raised Friday to spur more apprentices in Chattanooga.
“This is less about innovation but more about execution,” said Jeff McCord, Tennessee’s commissioner of labor and workforce development, to about 30 business people and educators who gathered at the offices of Volkswagen supplier Gestamp.
The company has been cited for its efforts with Hamilton County’s Work-Based Learning Program which permits Gestamp to identify and train high school juniors and seniors to work at its production facilities in Chattanooga.
“There are pockets of excellence in the state,” said McCord. “This is one of them.”
He said that his aim is to learn “best practices” around work-based learning and take those to other parts of Tennessee.