Jeremy Minikel
Business Services Coordinator
Michigan Works!
Benton Harbor, Michigan
When he hears of impending layoffs in a three-county area of southwest Michigan, Jeremy Minikel uses EMSI’s labor market information to figure out how the soon-to-be job-seekers can transition into promising career areas. Minikel assesses the occupational competencies (knowledge, skills, and abilities) of the displaced workers and then finds compatible and emerging industries to target. Depending on how the occupations match up, he or one of his colleagues at the Michigan Works! (Berrien-Cass-Van Buren) workforce board may recommend that the job-seeker take certain courses at a local educational institution to retool for a high-demand occupation. Like other areas of Michigan, the three counties that Minikel is focused on—Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren—have potential to tap into the fast-growing wind industry. Minikel says the area has the available workforce that could move into wind turbine manufacturing, for example, with minimal retraining. “We really do have the infrastructure that we could almost build an entire windmill within our region based on the showing of the companies in those industries (and) sub-industries that are located within the tri-county area or counties close to us.”