August 19, 2008 -- Chickasha and Grady County are the first in the state to achieve certified Work Ready status. The combined efforts of the city and county were honored Tuesday at the Canadian Valley Technology School. 

"Today and into the foreseeable future the key to economic development in Oklahoma is workforce recruitment, training, and certification," says Oklahoma Commerce Secretary Natalie Shirley. "Work Ready Community certification is another tool we have to focus efforts and prove results."
 
Launched by the Governor's Council for Workforce & Economic Development and the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, Certified Work Ready Communities quantify a communities' skilled workforce to an existing employer or a new business considering Oklahoma for a new location. The program is one of the first of its kind in the country.

Building a Stronger Pipeline
Oklahoma's Certified Work Ready Communities is an innovative program that encourages communities to put workforce at the front of their economic development agenda. It builds on the success of Oklahoma's Career Readiness Certificate (CRC) program, which assesses and certifies individual workers' skill sets and abilities.

Work Ready Communities elevates the certification to a geographical area. A certified "community" can be individual communities or counties, groups of contiguous cities and counties, or a regional partnership. However the community defines itself, certain criteria must be met. Certification is reviewed annually.

To be certified Work Ready, the community must meet the following requirements:

• 3% of its incumbent or existing workforce must have a either a gold, silver, or bronze CRC;
• 25% of its workforce not currently employed but looking for work must have a CRC;
• The school system must graduate 82% of its high school seniors or 82% of its high school seniors must have a CRC.

Every state in the country is competing to attract industry and grow existing businesses. But it takes a skilled, available workforce to compete effectively. 

"When communities are certified Work Ready, they gain a competitive advantage over non-certified communities because they can quantify a skilled workforce to an existing employer or a new business considering Oklahoma for a new location," says Norma Noble, Deputy Secretary of Workforce Development for Commerce.