TRWIB receives state funding for Regional Internship Center of Southwestern PA

PITTSBURGH, PA (December 20, 2002) — The Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board has been awarded a $47,000 grant by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to fund the Regional Internship Center of Southwestern PA.

In a region where there is a potential internship pool of 100,000 college students, our efforts result in only one percent completing internships.  Placing less than one percent of the region’s students in internship opportunities is not enough to make any meaningful impact on the region’s college student “talent retention” issue.  According to U.S. Census data, between 1990 and 2000, the region lost 121,589 people between 18 and 44—a 10.3 percent decline.  Furthermore, more than half of the graduates of Pittsburgh’s three largest universities leave the region after graduation.  At the same time that the number of young people is decreasing, the number of jobs available continues to increase.  Jordan Yin of the Center for Competitive Workforce Development at Duquesne University recently stated that the region has a deficit of approximately 96,000 workers 18-39 years of age.  The Regional Internship Center is one solution.

The goal of the Regional Internship Center is to increase the number of employers in our region who are committed to offering internships, thereby retaining a trained workforce to fill the expected employee shortage predicted for the near future. The Regional Internship Center will fundamentally change the regional internship system by simplifying and centralizing the internship matching process and managing the risks employers face when accepting interns.

In the first four months, RIC has received the buy-in of the critical regional partners—universities and colleges, employers and key civic players.  RIC has established solid working relationships with all 33 colleges and universities in the 13-county region.  Partnerships with these institutions of higher education are helping us identify gaps in service and create a process to bridge those gaps by better linking students to employers.  RIC is also working closely with local employers to develop internships and create a network that allows employers to confront and solve issues they face while hosting interns.  Finally, the RIC is also collaborating with key organizations, including the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, the Pittsburgh Technology Council and the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education, to centralize the internship process and offer the most effective system for internship development and recruitment to a broad range of employers.

We have identified the barriers to internship participation through the input of local organizations.  For small businesses, there is not an infrastructure to absorb the work that developing an internship opportunity requires. It is therefore our role to create a system that works for employers of all sizes.  This model needs to have the capacity to provide ongoing technical assistance, rapid response to employer requests, and a system that provides for easy access.  RIC will connect employers and higher education institutions with intermediary organizations that provide technical assistance including recruitment and placement support, internship program development or expansion support, best practice training, and research and development.  In addition, through active community collaborations, RIC will serve as the convener of technical assistance training programs.

In our first four months of operation the RIC has been able to create 200 internships.  The grant will enable us to increase this effort by 400 internships and leverage local resources that will build a system that can host more than 1000 internships annually.

The mission of the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board (TRWIB) is to create and promote an integrated and accountable workforce development system so that job seekers can find good jobs and employers can find qualified workers. Composed of community, business and government leaders, the TRWIB establishes local performance standards, charters one-stop service delivery centers and satellites (referred to as the CareerLink network), selects qualified service providers, and monitors performance. For more information, call the TRWIB at 412-552-7090 or visit us on the web at www.trwib.org.

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