To address the COVID-amplified challenge of labor force demand-supply mismatches, this investment takes a two-prong approach to attract and retain talent:
- Internships significantly influence the first full-time job of students. Creating more engaging internship opportunities to keep top talent at home is a critical strategy to increase our retention of STEM grads. Therefore, Michigan should scale up STEM forward to $9 million: The MEDC recently invested $1.5 million in placing Michigan STEM college students in internships at start-ups across Michigan. The program is facing tremendous demand and can be scaled up over the next three years to address this skills gap.
- Michigan does not have a comprehensive talent attraction and retention strategy. It must invest in building planning and research capacity to develop a collaborative approach to attraction and retention. Michigan should invest $2 million to build Talent Attraction and Retention capacity - create a statewide talent attraction and retention dashboard, conduct semi-annual surveys of targeted talent to understand how to better retain talent, and stand-up a statewide convening of regional talent organizations and other stakeholders, while providing targeted regional support.
The goal of the program would be to place 3,000 STEM interns at start-ups and create the support infrastructure to connect them to full-time jobs throughout Michigan.
