Finding your Future Workforce: Education & Industry Roundtables 2018

In October of 2018, the Team hosted “Finding Your Future Workforce” a series of six roundtable discussions convened across the county. The goal was to hear directly from business leaders what they were experiencing with the Polk County labor market.


During a session hosted by Lakeland Electric, Sean Malott, President and CEO of Central Florida Development Council, led a skills gap discussion with Lakeland business representatives.

During facilitated discussions, 133 cross-sector industry representatives were asked to identify and rank the jobs and skills needed in their workplace and to identify skills gaps in the available talent pool. While each employer reported varying degrees of difficulty in finding technically proficient applicants, 100% of those attending ranked soft skills as the number one most needed and the number one ranked skills deficit among applicants and the recently hired.

These local findings were confirmed through data reported by CareerSource Florida and the Department of Economic Opportunity.

(Skills Gap and Job Vacancy Survey, Statewide 2018)

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