Governor McDonnell’s Rural Jobs Council is out with its final report with recommendations on how to create and retain jobs in the rural parts of the Commonwealth. Beverly Amsler spoke with Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling.
Six months after Governor McDonnell established the Rural Jobs Council, its members came back with a number of suggestions, mainly in three areas - investing in the economic development infrastructure, workforce training and development-especially for young adults, and providing services to existing businesses to become better established and/or grow.
Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, Virginia’s Chief Jobs Creation Officer, believes the most important recommendations center around workforce training and development, “The most important thing to businesses coming into our state is making certain that they can find workers who have the skills they need to do the jobs that are available in their business. If they can’t find those workers in Virginia, they’ll go someplace else to find those workers.”
Bolling says before he and Governor McDonnell leave office in January, there will be some of the suggestions that they’ll be able to implement administratively. Others they may propose as part of the budget for the next Governor to implement as he sees fit.