Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | May 29, 2017 | Worcester Business Journal 27 breaking ground Your emergency is our mission. Baystate Wing Hospital Breaks Ground for New Emergency Department Baystate Wing Hospital is constructing a new $17.2 million building which will deliver more space, more privacy and less waiting. Scheduled for completion in September 2018, the state-of-the-art Emergency Department will be funded by Baystate Health and from the support of our community donors, launched by a generous charitable contribution of $1 million by Country Bank. "Over the years, Country Bank has never wavered in its support of both Baystate Wing Hospital and Baystate Mary Lane because it believes that communities with local access to quality healthcare thrive. We welcome others in the community to follow the lead of Country Bank in supporting this terrific project." –Mike Moran, president & chief administrative officer, Eastern Region, Baystate Health For more information on supporting the Baystate Wing Hospital Emergency Department project, please call Teresa Grove at (413) 370-5798 or visit baystatehealth.org/bhf " " Mark Keroack, MD, president & chief executive officer, Baystate Health; Paul Scully, chair, Baystate Wing Hospital and president & chief executive officer, Country Bank and Mike Moran, president & chief administrative officer, Eastern Region, Baystate Health (left to right). Jo Maqui, a single mother of a 6-year-old girl, has struggled to find a job that fits with her parenting and transportation needs. "There are so many obstacles in the way," said Maqui, who worked at Home Depot. "We're all up for a challenge, but there's nothing out there." Clayton-Matthews estimated about 105,000 people in Massachusetts are underemployed, working part-time because they can't find full-time work. That's down from a peak of about twice that during the height of the recession, but still well above the roughly 70,000 who fit into that category before the recession, he said. Proper training One day late last month, Labor Secretary Ronald Walker stopped by Worcester Technical High School for a regional conference on workforce training with representatives from Mount Wachusett and Quinsigamond community colleges and school district leaders. The state has begun setting up such regional meetings to better focus on the particular needs of Central Massachusetts. "Regional planning is a key part of it," Walker said of efforts to keep what he called a pipeline of workers toward available jobs. Like the state labor office and local career centers, community colleges play a role by offering job training for those looking to re-enter the workforce or change job fields. At Mount Wachusett, those overseeing workforce develop- ment have seen high demand for healthcare and manu- facturing jobs. Healthcare jobs have grown with an aging population, and manufacturing work more likely includes technical knowledge than in generations past as manufacturing becomes more automated. "What people don't necessarily realize is that those automated positions are higher-level positions; they pay more, and they require more expertise," said Reifsteck from Mount Wachusett. Manufacturing jobs are so in demand that Mount Wachusett has had more than 300 pass through its training program in the past three years. About three- fourths of those got jobs within 90 days. Ronald Walker, secretary, Massachusetts Department of Labor W P H O T O / E D D C O T E

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