RICHMOND, Va., Feb. 22 -- Virginia's Community Colleges issued the following news release:
Virginia confronts a widely acknowledged skills gap, with about 249,000 unfilled jobs
in the state. The Virginia Chamber's 29,000-plus members, many of them small businesses, struggle daily to hire people with the right skills for those jobs.
This labor gap is worsened by Virginia's consistent net negative out-migration for the last nine years, alongside a looming decline in K-12 populations for years to come. The question is, where are workers going to come from?
The answer lies with the 3.2 million Virginians lacking postsecondary credentials. The absolute best path for millions of Virginians to prepare for good jobs is accessing one of Virginia...