APEX Focuses on regional workforce

At the close of another busy and productive year, we wanted to share some of our key efforts to strengthen and highlight regional workforce initiatives. Many industries are growing in the APEX region, and we've had companies choose to expand and locate here because of our strategic location, rich natural resources and, most importantly, our productive workforce.

The time to prepare the next generation of workers is now. Over the next decade, we’re anticipating growth in the manufacturing industry alone, while over 20% of the workforce will retire. According to the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte, this will create a shortfall of over 2 million workers. This trend has the potential to impact many industries that thrive in the Northland.

With these projections, APEX, our investor-members and other partners planned, hosted or attended many events to address the evolving regional workforce. These events provided the background and acted as a catalyst to several ongoing workforce development conversations and initiatives.