As Regions Bank’s top executive in commercial banking for the seven-state area, David May’s job has taken him away from home three nights a week for 30 years.
His side gig now makes that seem like cake.
May is leading the corporate executive side of a massive regional effort to improve the workforce as it prepares for the 6,000 workers Blue Oval City needs to open in 2025, plus the 20,000 affiliated jobs that parts companies and suppliers are lining up to need.
That’s on top of the Swiss cheese of staffing that shops, factories and hospitals have been limping along with here for months.
“These workers are going to come from Arkansas, Mississippi, the Mid-South,” said May, chairman of the Chairman’s Circle, the 145 most influential executives in Memphis, the nexus of power in the Greater Memphis Chamber.
“They are going to come from our current employers,” May said. “That’s why a lot of our employers went, ‘Wow, OK, so the vacancies we have now might even get bigger?’”
In the last 30 days, postings for jobs in Memphis have exceeded 275,632, according to chamber data.
The antidote is quickly delivering skill-certification courses — eight to 22 weeks long — getting workers up to speed, pronto, without a high school transcript, financial aid or prerequisites.
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