The success of the Real Jobs Rhode Island program is predicated on the idea that workforce development should be driven by the needs of employers, not the perceptions and whims of educators or government bureaucrats.
And while government support of the program has been key to its success, there is another area of job development that shows how the market can deliver what employers need if the right people are listening.
For more than a decade, universities have been beefing up their cybersecurity programs, because businesses cannot hire their students fast enough. In fact, they should be producing more such graduates.
Employers include the obvious ones, such as government agencies and the military, but they may also be small companies that do business with other companies or consumers. The schools themselves have been adding cybersecurity talent to their staffs.
With so much information having been digitized over the last few decades, cyber hygiene and breach response are a couple of business’s most important skill sets. It’s a good sign that someone has been listening.