Workforce Development

Higher Education

Auglaize County has an outstanding labor force of over 25,200 with more than 6500 jobs in manufacturing. Beyond location, Auglaize County is blessed with a skilled workforce and availability to customized career pathway training programs offered through Wright State University – Lake Campus and Rhodes State College. Also, Auglaize County is served by two vocational high schools (Apollo Career Center and Tri-Star Career Compact) which prepare high school students with a trade skill in Automotive Technology, Computer Assisted Drafting(CAD), Computer Support Technology, Electronics Engineering Technology, Manufacturing Engineering Technologies, Medical Technology Preparation, and Precision Machining. Within a 150 mile radius, students from Auglaize County can attend college at some of the most prestigious universities in the Midwest, including the following:

Right To Work Mentality

Although Ohio has often been perceived as a heavily union-organized state, trends indicate that is no longer true. Over the past 20 years, Ohio has seen a substantial drop in overall union membership, as well as a dramatic shift in unionization from the private sector, and particularly private sector manufacturing, to the public sector. In 1989, 987,000 Ohio workers belonged to a union. By 2009 this figure had fallen more than 30 percent (302,000 workers) to 685,000, of which just 8.9 percent of private sector workers were union members.

In the past, Ohio’s concentration of private sector union membership was located in its urban markets centered in the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Akron areas. The west central Ohio region has always been an exception. The presence of unions, union membership, and union activity has been less in the region when compared to urban centers in Ohio and the Midwest.

Study data from a 2011 project indicates only 3.6 percent of the region’s total civilian labor force (348,200), are private sector union members. Download a full report of this project here.