LSU College of Engineering and Baton Rouge Area Chamber to Host Forum on German Skills Initiative

 

The German Embassy started the Skills Initiative to identify and share information about best practices in sustainable workforce development, in cooperation with German companies investing in the US.

Today, more than 3,400 German companies have investments in the American market. It is estimated that German businesses have created approximately 620,000 jobs in the United States. However, German companies have identified job skills as a key challenge to their success.

The Skills Initiative is an effort to take on this challenge by sharing information about Germany’s vocational education and training system, which is considered to be a major reason for Germany’s economic success.

This dual system of vocational training provides qualifications through its unique combination of theory and practice, learning and working, thereby offering an attractive and recognized training and career path after high school, as both an alternative and a complementary option to university education.

The German Skills Initiative Forum is open to the business community and will be held on Thursday, Feb. 16 from 4-6 p.m. The program will include a presentation by Mr. Hermann Nehls, the Counselor for Labor, Health, and Social Affairs at the German Embassy in Washington, DC, and will be followed by a panel discussion that includes Nehls along with representatives from BASF Corporation and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. For complete details, please see the flyer.

Please RSVP to rharris9@lsu.edu if you are interested in attending. You can learn more about the German Skills Initiative here.

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Laura J. Odenwald, assistant manager of digital marketing, LSU College of Engineering