Columbus, OH – As America prepares to mark Manufacturing Day, The Buckeye Institute released a new policy brief, Training Tomorrow’s Advanced Manufacturing Employees Today, that outlines the urgency of equipping Ohio workers with the training and skills needed for the jobs of tomorrow.

In his paper, Logan Kolas, an economic policy analyst with the Economic Research Center at The Buckeye Institute, notes that even though automation and technology have “reduced manufacturing workforces in Ohio and across the country, new learning technologies are poised to help train those workforces for the manufacturing jobs of tomorrow.”

Kolas urges Ohio policymakers to “follow the path charted by other states and integrate immersive learning technologies into education and worker training programs.” He calls for lawmakers to amend “community college funding protocols to help train and send more graduates on to advanced manufacturing employers.”

READ MORE: Immersive Learning Technologies: Changing How We Live and Learn

“Corporate investments from technology manufacturing companies like Intel have revived optimism for advanced manufacturing in Ohio,” Kolas writes. “But those investments also require successful training, upskilling, and education initiatives so that Ohio employers have the skilled employees needed to do the job.”

In closing, Kolas points out how immersive learning technologies are changing the face of and nature of manufacturing and argues that “Ohio policy should change along with it.”

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