Emphasizing soft skills, improving mental health keys to readying workforce

If the Trump administration truly wants to bring manufacturing back to its “glory days,” it’s going to have to invest in workforce development and allow the decisions on how to train people to occur at the local level.

That’s the message Northwest Indiana workforce development leaders gave to U.S. Representatives Frank J. Mrvan, D-District 1, and Illinois U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, Wednesday afternoon when the two held a roundtable at United Steelworkers Local 1066 in Gary. The two legislators were on a fact-finding mission to see what’s needed to shore up apprentice programs and make education in the trades affordable to people who’re interested in going that route.

By 2050, the need for people working in the trades because of an aging population is “astonishing,” said Lisa Daugherty, President and CEO for the Center of Workforce Innovation in Valparaiso. The six-figure jobs are out there, but the skills many young people currently possess aren’t.

“The things that used to be called ‘soft skills’ that are now called ‘professional skills’ — showing up to work on time, being respectful, teamwork, making eye contact when you talk to someone – aren’t there,” Daugherty said. “You can provide the technical training, and there are many who want to work, but they have to be ready.”

Potential candidates have far different priorities as well, Local 1066 President Mark Lash said. When he was starting his career, his goal was “to make as much money as he could.”

“I was picking up overtime left and right and never missed a shift. Today, there are guys who don’t want to miss one of their kid’s baseball games. They’re satisfied with what they have,” Lash said.

Dewey Pearman, executive director for the Construction Advancement Foundation of Northwest Indiana, added another concern: mental health.

“My son has several friends with significant mental health issues, and if we don’t address it, they’ll never get there. Three of them are a just a wreck,” Pearman said.

Mrvan, who’d held a healthcare summit with area providers Tuesday, said he and House Democrats are “doing everything they can” to keep access to mental health.

“Individuals want to get better,” he said.

On the employer side, training comes down to money and how much they want to put toward it. Back in the heyday, the mills had full apprenticeship programs, USW District 7 President Mike Milsap said, until the ’90s, when they went to a “fast track” model that promoted employees from within and had other, experienced workers teach them the ropes in 18 months.

Those workers are now drying up, he said, and they’ve since turned to using outside contractors because they can’t get their workers trained. As well, new employees need to have at least a year of industrial experience, so kids coming out of high school likely are disqualified off the bat.

“At U.S. Steel, we used to get by on recruiting people from smaller companies to fill our needs for electricians or maintenance workers. From 1985 to 2007, it worked,” added Lash. “Since then, that pool of people is quite diminished.”

At Cleveland-Cliffs, they’re making their mechanical staff and electricians in 12 months, and they’re also hiring from within, according to a representative from that mill. When candidates weren’t hitting the minimum scores on the entrance exams, they lowered the scores so they could.

“When Cliffs says, ‘There’s no money,’ we don’t have another funding mechanism. Training stops,” he said. “We’re just getting by, and we’re not putting our best-trained steel workers out there.”

Center for Workforce Innovation Strategic Innovations Director Kathy Neary said her organization works with employers and high schools to get trades-based programs in the schools, but the employers need to sell themselves and their needs more than ever.

“I advise anyone to spend a couple hours and really think about what the disqualifiers are (for your company), because we need to know,” Neary said. “We’re the ones who’re facilitating (the training), and it’s no longer a buyer’s market. You have to sell yourself.”

At the college level, Community College Daily reported that Senate appropriators on last Thursday passed a bipartisan education and labor spending bill for fiscal year 2026 that would keep the Pell Grant maximum award at $7,395 for the 2026-2027 school year and preserve the $65-million Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants (SCC) program. It would also fund many education and workforce development programs important to community colleges at or near current level, their website said.

The measure, passed by a 26-3 vote, would provide $1.5 billion for career and technical education and $729 million for adult education, according to figures shared by Republicans. The bill also rejects the Trump administration’s proposed 34% cut to employment and training programming and its proposed block grant of a dozen workforce programs, they reported.