At Henrico summit, Youngkin applauds schools and employers for Virginia’s job recovery

Virginia has seen its workforce grow by 250,000 people since January 2022, which Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin credits to the collaborative efforts of Virginia’s K-12 schools, four-year and community colleges, and employers to help boost workforce development programs.

At the Virginia Works Together Summit on Thursday, held at Hermitage High School’s new Advanced Career Education Center building, Youngkin touted the progress Virginia has made in workforce recovery during the past two and a half years. Between 2020 and 2022, Virginia had seen 23,500 small businesses close and lost 150,000 workers. But this year, the state has seen the labor participation rate increase back to pre-pandemic levels.

“We all remember what it was like when we came out of the pandemic…Virginia was in a very different place,” Youngkin said. “We in fact had lost over 150,000 Virginians out of the workforce. We were bottom third in the country in job recovery…That is what we walked into. And collectively we locked arms, we said, Virginia is going to surge to the forefront.”

Reviving Virginia’s workforce meant bringing a “different lens” to the issue, Youngkin said, including a focus on elevating alternative educational pathways and school programs that helped students develop workforce skills.

“We began to take a different lens at things: we had a lens that says that at the heart of workforce is education,” Youngkin said. “At the heart of workforce is economic development, and of course at the heart of workforce is supporting all of the skill-building that we need that is dedicated to those high in-demand jobs that we need to train for.”

At the summit, which included employers, education officials, and state government representatives, Youngkin emphasized the importance of investing in K-12 workforce development programs and offering students pathways to employment directly after high school.

“We must be connected in K-12 workforce development,” he said. “Like making sure that every student that wants to graduate from one of our great schools, our high schools across the Commonwealth in Virginia, is enabled to do so with an industry-recognized credential so they can go to work right away if that’s what they choose.”

Henrico Schools has made several big investments in its Workforce & Career Development program during the past few years, including two new ACE Center buildings at Hermitage High and Highland Springs High, which opened to students last school year, and a new ACE Center building at the Academy at Virginia Randolph, which is set to open later this year.

The new buildings will allow HCPS to seat an additional 800 to 1,000 students in CTE programs, which will help the division accommodate the increasing number of students interested in joining different workforce programs. Henrico CTE has also expanded course offerings and work-based learning experiences over the past year by partnering with local employers.

Younkin applauded both Henrico Schools and Hermitage ACE Center Principal Dale King on efforts to expand workforce training to more students.

“I’d like to say congratulations to Henrico County Public Schools for recognizing that there are multiple pathways in education, and opening up these opportunities to so many students,” he said. “When I look at what principal Dale King is doing here, the student groups are learning how to collaborate and share, they’re learning how to work together. There’s a variety of careers that are being trained here with great foundation.”

This past May, Henrico CTE celebrated 56 high school seniors from the division’s three ACE Centers, about 10% of the ACE Centers’ graduating senior class, for securing full-time jobs in their industry immediately after graduation.

About 10 of those seniors took jobs in construction, an industry that has struggled to regain its workforce in Virginia since the pandemic. In a “Workforce Survey” conducted last summer by the Associated General Contractors of America, 96% of construction firms in Virginia reported having open positions they are trying to fill.

But Virginia’s construction industry has begun to bounce back over the past year; between Aug. 2023 and Aug. 2024, Virginia added 12,000 new construction jobs.

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Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s Report for America Corps member and education reporter. Her position is dependent upon reader support; make a tax-deductible contribution to the Citizen through RFA here.