WELLSTON — Watching as they tinkered with the engines of tractor-trailers parked inside a converted factory here, Josh Walker said he was confident these students would be snapped up by employers, some even before they completed his course.
“It’s insane,†said Walker, who heads St. Louis Community College’s Diesel Tech program that operates out of the Metropolitan Employment and Training Center. “If they come in in August, I’ve had classes 100% hired by October.â€
The heavy truck repair and maintenance program is just one of the many classes run out of the MET Center. Up on the fourth floor, there are licensed practical nurse certificate classes run by Special School District of St. Louis County. There is a lab-tech training program with curriculum that companies like Pfizer and KWS helped design. St. Louis Public Schools hosts GED classes in the building.
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“You can’t do this work alone,†said Carolyn Seward, CEO of , which coordinates much of the programming in the MET Center.
Acquired by St. Louis County’s economic development arm in the 1980s for environmental cleanup, the former Wagner Electric factory was converted into the MET Center during the 1990s. Steps from a MetroLink stop and a child care facility operated by one of the MET Center tenants, it has long served as an important anchor in one of the poorest communities of the region.
But the MET Center has not been used to its fullest potential. Today, it’s just around 65% leased. Some $3 million in capital needs for the old building are looming. The sixth floor is unfinished.
While employers wrestle with labor shortages and a dearth of workers trained for the jobs they need to fill, there’s an unprecedented amount of federal dollars available to local governments for job-training and investment in low-income communities. The county is considering using $22 million of its $193 million allocation from the American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress in March, for a major expansion of the MET Center’s programming. The allocation could help cement the MET Center’s place as a hub for services designed to help some of the St. Louis area’s poorest residents gain a foothold on the economic ladder.
“The need is there, the space is here,†Seward said. “We just need the additional support.â€
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page recommended the MET Center funding in a July letter outlining a spending plan for the ARPA funds. The St. Louis County Council still has not decided on a plan to spend the money.
St. Louis County Council Chair Rita Days, who said the council will work on its plan after hearing from accounting firm Deloitte on eligible uses for the federal funds, said appropriating some of the ARPA money to the MET center is a great idea.
“I think people are recognizing it is a resource that we really need to invest in and make sure that it happens for, not just the people of Wellston but the people of St. Louis County period,†Days said. “Look at where it is. It’s on a bus line. It’s on a Metro(Link) Line. Transportation should not be a problem for people. I think it’s perfectly poised to make a major transition for the community.â€
Demand for workers
The renewed focus on the MET Center from St. Louis County and its economic development arm, the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, comes amid what could be a secular shift in the labor market. While the effects of government stimulus, which gave new leverage to lower-paid workers to demand higher wages or quit extra jobs, fade, the accelerated pace of retirements among baby boomers and the high cost of child care may contribute to a persistent shortage in the labor force, some economists believe.
Even before the shift in the labor market, many employers have long-complained about difficulty filling roles requiring special training or licensing — nursing, trucking, lab workers and computer programmers.
Locally, the issue is compounded by St. Louis’ slow population growth. Where other regions can count on immigration and new arrivals to buoy their labor market, St. Louis needs to be thinking about how it can get people who are not participating in the traditional labor market — oftentimes in poor communities like Wellston, devastated by factory closings and population loss — to join, said Hart Nelson, St. Louis Community College associate vice chancellor of workforce solutions.
“Why the MET Center I do believe is really important, the more successful programs are going to find ways to reach communities that are already here that have opted out, who feel like they have been left behind, and that’s critical for us to be able to fill the jobs we have,†Nelson said. “If we’re not attracting immigration and we know we’re not growing, that means we need to be reaching out to folks who are closer. We need to solve those and work on those, too, but for the immediate term we’ve got to reach out to folks who are here and not participating, and you can’t do that from Brentwood.â€
Jason Hall, CEO of regional business and civic group Greater St. Louis Inc., agreed the MET Center is in a “strategic location†that helps make it easier for residents in low-income communities to access training services. And successful metro areas need to put resources into training in order to adapt to rapid technological change and compete for jobs.
“It’s right in the wheelhouse of what we need to continue to focus on in the metro (area),†Hall said of the MET Center.
The Family and Workforce Centers of America has taken a larger role in the MET Center since Seward founded it about 10 years ago. In addition to the skilled training classes, it offers classes in the soft skills — interpersonal relationships, communication and work ethic — needed for all jobs. The nonprofit also provides financial literacy classes and operates the Early Explorers Child Development Academy a block away.
Wraparound services
About 300 to 400 people complete skills training through the MET Center every year. Thousands more complete soft-skill training or access other job services there, Seward said. It’s those wraparound services like financial literacy, legal help with warrants and traffic tickets, combined with job training that can help change someone’s life, she said.
“If we’re not talking about trying to center and stabilize individuals with these types of services, it’s just a vicious cycle,†Seward said.
She could get the chance to take a larger role in the MET Center soon. St. Louis County, which has subsidized the MET Center’s operations for years, this summer stepped back from its role there. Under a new lease, the county will put $500,000 annually toward the MET Center. The LCRA, which owns the real estate, will kick in $250,000 toward major repair costs and look for new tenants to rent space in an effort to get the MET Center to become more financially self-sufficient. In the meantime, the county and LCRA will be looking for other federal grants for major repairs.
The Family and Workforce Centers of America, which has about 85 employees across several locations, could end up taking over as a master tenant, or even owning the building. Seward is confident she can bring in more programs and make the MET Center self-sufficient, like she tries to do with her clients. She said she’s in talks with the United Auto Workers union, dealerships and auto repair shops to put in an auto repair training class in an unused industrial space. The program could incorporate electric vehicle maintenance, a skill set sure to grow in demand.
Those types of training programs are important, said Deanna Venker, chief administrative officer for St. Louis County, as workforce needs change. Though the county stepped back from a management role, Venker said it’s still very much committed to the MET Center.
“We decided to kind of take the bull by the horns and make some programmatic changes to be able to use it to its full extent,†she said. “There are so many opportunities out there at the MET Center to knock (occupancy) up to 100%, which would be fantastic for the community.â€