If you listen to employers, workforce training is one of the biggest things limiting Chautauqua County.

We can see it, if we look hard enough. There are restaurants that are closed on days they used to be open because they simply can’t find workers. Hours have changed at many retail businesses because there isn’t available labor to be open as long as they used to be. You can hear advertisements for manufacturers looking for applicants so there is a pool of workers available to fill jobs quickly so production lines don’t have to be shut down. You can see it with the sheer number of hiring signs in the windows or yards of any number of businesses in the region.

That all makes sense in light of recent labor statistics showing Chautauqua County’s labor force in May reached its highest level (54,500 workers) since June 2021, when summer employment bumped the labor force to 54,700 workers. There are 1,800 unemployed workers in the labor force for an unemployment rate of 3.4%, a tenth of a percent higher than May 2022’s unemployment rate.

That means there are people looking for work, then, but they don’t have the skills for the jobs that are available. Those in many skilled trades are getting older, with fewer young workers ready to fill those important jobs.

That’s the impetus for the Jamestown Public Schools reimagining of the Rogers Elementary School building as the Innovation Center at R.R. Rogers School. A lot of money has been spent over the years on workforce development programs at BOCES, the Cassadaga Job Corps Academy, Jamestown Community College, Dream It Do It through the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce and the Manufacturer’s Association of the Southern Tier, the state’s P-TECH program housed in Dunkirk and even in some schools, like Chautauqua Lake Central School. Despite that investment there is still a job training disconnect both countywide and in the Jamestown area.

Dr. Kevin Whitaker, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent, said the job training gap is seen in the student population as well as the city in which students live. Whitaker told reporters recently as many as 60% of the district’s graduates graduate from Jamestown High School unsure of their next step.

That’s where the Innovation Center comes in.

District officials hope to begin using the former Rogers Elementary School building in the 2024-25 school year as a place to partner with manufacturers and employers to expose students to job possibilities available in the region. There is a lot of work to do, but early reports are that the center will partner with Jamestown Community College and possibly BOCES while including students in elementary school through high school. Examples include biomedical, manufacturing, welding, construction, coding, robotics and aviation both during the school day and after school.

That all sounds great, though we hope the programs at the Innovation Center don’t end up being duplicative of existing offerings at JCC and BOCES. That shouldn’t happen since JCC and BOCES will have a role in the Innovation Center.

The Innovation Center, in our opinion, also needs to be realistic. Programs dealing with skilled trades and advanced manufacturing will surely help some of those students who don’t know what they want to do with their lives. Exposure to skilled trades and emerging industries may be exactly the opportunity undecided students need.

But the center should also include some of the soft skills necessary to help those students prepare for a life in the service and retail sector, because too often a high school education isn’t preparing students for bridge jobs that can sustain someone while they learn the skills they need for a true career.

If the Jamestown Public Schools is going to do its best to make sure every graduate is college or workforce ready, then its graduates have to leave Jamestown High School with the soft skills to walk into all facets of the labor market — not just skilled trades or emerging industries.