Clarke Anderson has hired employees from India and China because, he said, there weren't enough local qualified applicants for his information technology firm.
And Anderson pays a fee each time he hires someone under the federal H-1B nonimmigrant visa program.
So Anderson, CEO of East Lansing-based A.J. Boggs & Co., was excited to hear that fees from that program soon will be used to train Lansing-area residents for jobs in the IT sector.
Capital Area Michigan Works received a $4.4 million federal grant to provide information technology training and job placement assistance.
The U.S. Department of Labor grant will allow the Lansing-based workforce development agency to help about 350 area residents per year for about three years, said Doug Stites, CEO of Capital Area Michigan Works.
Its main focus is unemployed job seekers, but there also will be programming for recent high school graduates, he said.
Most of the training will be done in partnership with Lansing Community College or Michigan State University, Stites said. Local employers such as A.J. Boggs & Co. will provide input on the program.
Anderson employs 14 people at his IT firm.
He doesn't have any current employees under the visa program, but has hired foreign workers in the past.
"There are a lot of applicants, but to find applicants with the skill set we're looking for is more challenging," he said.
Details of the new program aren't final but Stites said he hopes to launch in January.
"We've identified in our region that we have a pretty robust IT economy," he said. "The whole idea is to try to figure out how do we add, find resources to try to help our local people."
The local IT employment is expected to grow about 10 percent between 2008 and 2018, according to state labor statistics. Total employment for IT jobs is projected for about 7,200 by 2018.
