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Workforce Training Programs, Incentives and Analysis Tools

Maine has a number of incentive programs to help you train employees and develop entrepreneurs:

• Maine Quality Centers Program – Through its Community College System, Maine offers free training and education to qualified new and expanding businesses. Under the Maine Quality Centers program, businesses – or consortia of small businesses – creating a minimum of eight new full-time jobs are eligible for customized recruitment and guaranteed fast-track training designed to employer specifications. Employers save on expansion and training costs, and Maine employees receive free specialized training that can lead to quality, full-time jobs with Maine companies on the move

• Governor’s Training Initiative – is a reimbursement program for training costs that companies incur related to expansions, retentions, or upgrading issues. Provides eligible businesses with partial reimbursement of training costs for the hiring of new employees, and/or retaining or upgrading their existing work force.

• Maine Apprenticeship Program – provides customized training and professional credentials to new, present, as well as future workers. The Registered Apprenticeship program allows workers to learn new skills through on-the-job training and related classroom instruction. The Pre-Apprenticeship program includes two years of customized high school academics coupled with on-the-job training during the junior and senior years.

• Safety Education and Training Program – provides, at no cost to the company, a Maine Bureau of Labor Standards customized health and safety training program, site evaluation and technical support to reduce injuries, illness and worker’s compensation costs.

• Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership – provides affordable, innovative solutions to the problems encountered by today’s manufacturing enterprise by facilitating interaction between industry, government and academia.

• Competitive Skills Scholarship – Provides workers with a grant to help them earn a degree or certificate in certain education or training programs.

• Life Long Learning Accounts – Helps workers and employers work together to finance skill development and lifelong learning.

• Prior Learning Assessment – Allows students to obtain college credit for training and skills obtained outside the classroom.

Maine has a Maine Jobs Council that is the statewide workforce investment board, which oversees the implementation of workforce development programs in Maine

The following are links to the latest workforce research and also to the State of Maine’s comprehensive labor and workforce analysis tools:

Trends and Implications for the Maine Workforce : Report providing a broad overview of workforce development issues and challenges.

Maine's Workforce Development System : Guide to education and training programs in Maine.

Other Workforce / Labor Market Research and Information