State of the Workforce
Herkimer, Madison and Oneida Counties

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Health Care

Key Factors

With New York States population continuing to become older (Census projections call for a 62.7% increase in the numbers of New Yorkers aged 85 and above between 1993 and 2020 and the Herkimer-Madison-Oneida Region consistently older than the state’s average), the demand for health care workers continually rises.

Policy Actions

Since its founding in 2000, the WIB has made health care training a priority. In 2004, its efforts to work with health care employers earned the WIB the One-Stop/Business Collaboration Award from Region One of the U.S. Department of Labor.

The WIB will be seeking to implement a regional health care workforce council to help employers across a six-county region develop common approaches to key training needs. This will include increasing distance learning options, and developing a regional career lattice for the health care industry that can enhance employee retention and recruitment.

The WIB will be also working with local educators to build on the success of pilot projects begun in 2004 to develop future nurses from among the under-represented populations in local schools.

The WIB will also continue to work with employers to develop creative solutions to workforce retention, such as the Career Ladder Project with St. Elizabeth Medical Center, RN-BSN Program at Rome Memorial Hospital and EC-CEL Management Training Program with St. Elizabeth. The WIB’s efforts in this area have been cited as promising practices by both the New York State Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Labor’s H-1B Grant Project.

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