Developing Maine’s Workforce

Developing Maine’s Workforce

Expanding Global U Curriculum

Maine’s future success depends on a global workforce. When we talk with Maine businesses about barriers to growth and exporting, the inability to hire enough skilled workers to fill existing orders is frequently one of the top challenges for manufacturers across industry sectors. While addressing the workforce shortage is beyond the scope of MITC, our efforts in this arena provided international business focused training for individual employees or entrepreneurs and internships for college students during the past year.

In 2021, Global U training sessions were conducted as webinars accessible to attendees from across the state and offering a wide range of topics for companies at all levels of experience with international business. Last year’s training series included: Export Opportunities for Maine Companies in China & ASEAN, a three-part series on UN Sustainable Development Goals hosted by MENADO, ExporTech Maine, hands-on training in Mastering Export Documentation and Export Compliance, Grow Your Export Sales with STEP Financial Support, Navigating Canada’s Non-Resident Business Requirements, and Exploring Africa: Connections and Markets for Maine Businesses. Each of these programs brought in experts with the goal of assisting Maine companies in expanding their capacities or markets.

Internships – Future Global Leaders

MITC has trained over 200 college students and recent graduates in our paid, part-time internship program Future Global Leaders. As a Research Assistant, MITC interns learn about international trade from Maine’s point of view, hone internet and other secondary research skills, and gain valuable insight into what real Maine companies doing business internationally need to know. In addition to an overview of the tools of international trade (Harmonized Tariff Schedule, International Market Reports, Tariffs and Taxes, and US Census data), interns are encouraged to attend our Global U training, as well as meetings with Maine companies.

The pivot to a remote internship program which began in 2020 has allowed for more diverse intern applicants across Maine to be able to participate. In 2021, we received a total of 42 applications for internships. During this continued year of uncertainty, MITC was fortunate to have has several stellar students and recent graduates working as remote interns. Continuing to offer quality research reports and technical assistance through the work produced by our interns has been invaluable to the organization and the companies we serve.