Maricopa County has received $1.5 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Labor to support workforce training in advanced manufacturing. The funding, distributed through the Arizona Department of Economic Security, will focus on training and upskilling workers for careers in this sector.
Chairman Thomas Galvin of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors said, “Maricopa County has worked hard to develop programs and partnerships that strengthen our workforce. This grant enables us to double down on our partnership with Boeing, an employer to more than 4,800 people and 570 suppliers across the state, and build a more robust pipeline of highly skilled manufacturing talent. Thank you to the U.S. Department of Labor for funding this partnership and investing in our region’s economy.”
The program aims to train up to 469 current employees and new hires at Boeing and other advanced manufacturing partners. Grant funds will reimburse employers for up to 80% of each participant’s training costs, estimated at $3,200 per person. Payments are performance-based: one is made after a participant completes training, and another when they have stayed on the job for six months.
This local initiative is part of a broader $86 million investment by the U.S. Department of Labor in Industry-Driven Skills Training across 14 states. The national effort seeks to accelerate innovation and address critical workforce needs by offering outcome-based reimbursements for employer-led training programs in high-demand industries.
Maricopa County joins the City of Phoenix and Pinal County as Arizona recipients of these grants.
While these efforts aim to boost skilled employment opportunities locally, educational achievement data highlight ongoing challenges in student proficiency rates within Maricopa County schools. For example, only 36% of students in grades three through eight passed the mathematics section of the AASA during the 2023-24 school year (https://www.azed.gov/). High schoolers also saw limited success: just 33.9% passed the mathematics section on the ACT during that same period (https://www.azed.gov/).
For further information about Maricopa County’s workforce development initiatives, visit Maricopa.gov/WDD.
