A rural Indiana county gets creative: Their skilled worker training begins at the courthouse

A student welds during one of Lawrence County’s courses.
(Courtesy photo, Joe Timbrook via The Daily Yonder)

Need skilled workers? It might be time to train them. "Indiana's Lawrence County — an area known for its limestone quarries and being the birthplace of three astronauts — has had to get creative to close the education gaps and labor shortages afflicting much of rural America," reports Nick Fouriezos of The Daily Yonder. "About seven years ago, a local mayor aired out his frustrations to Joe Timbrook, director of career development for the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council. His message, Timbrook recalled recently, was simple: All the area's employers were complaining that they couldn't find any skilled workers."

That 2018 exchange got Timbrook thinking -- where could he find these elusive workers? He started discussing the problem with other Lawrence County leaders "who together realized that the county had about 2,500 adults aged 18 to 65 that didn't have even their high school diploma, much less postsecondary training. Handwritten signs on telephone poles were the only way most people were learning how to get their high school certification," Fouriezos writes. "With the help of an Indiana state grant, the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council came together in 2018 to start addressing its workforce gaps. Perhaps the county's most innovative re-education effort began in its courthouse."

While starting re-education in a courthouse is unusual, the innovative approach paid off. "The council persuaded local judges and prosecutors to include in all plea agreements a 3-week training course for in-demand fields such as machining, welding, and construction. From there, the students can continue pursuing 8-week and 10-week certification courses paid for by the state, Fouriezos reports. "Once the growth council saw the success of the program, it started opening the program to other adults as well." Timbrook told him: "I have judges texting me on the weekends about how the class is doing. . . . We're just trying to figure out what this community needs and fill the gaps."

The lack of skilled workers is a nationwide problem. "Key industries lost scores of workers in recent years and have struggled to get them back. Manufacturing lost 1.4 million jobs at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, and hasn't replaced them, with nearly 700,000 open jobs as of March 2023," Fouriezos explains. "Even if every unemployed person with experience were employed, manufacturers would fill only around 75% of their vacant jobs, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which notes similar deficits in education, health services, and wholesale and retail trade."

Fouriezo reports, "Using local data to assess what already works and expand it is especially critical in areas with few educational institutions, says Dakota Pawlicki, director of "Talent Hubs" at Civic Lab, an education nonprofit that partnered with Lawrence County to systemize their outreach strategy. 'With a lot of national organizations, there is this perception that rural areas are at a deficit,' Pawlicki says, but that perspective can lead to many hidden strengths of rural areas being overlooked. 'In Lawrence County, their unique asset just happened to be something that was happening inside of jail.'"