Mayor Garcetti launches ‘LA MADE 4.0’ to increase upskilling in LA manufacturing and create new career paths for Angelenos

By 2022, the initiative will retrain 3,000 workers and develop 500 manufacturing pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships

LOS ANGELES — On Tuesday, October 15, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced LA MADE 4.0 — a partnership between the City of Los Angeles, Goodwill Southern California, the UCLA-based Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII), and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering that will prepare the city’s workforce for new technologies and provide middle-class career opportunities to Angelenos interested in manufacturing.

“Los Angeles is a manufacturing capital — a place where dreamers from around the world come to build tomorrow’s innovations today,” said Mayor Garcetti. “Manufacturing jobs are the bedrock of our economy, and LA MADE 4.0 will give more Angelenos the tools and training they need to secure middle class careers in smart manufacturing.”

Since taking office, Mayor Garcetti has strengthened working families and the middle class. Under his leadership, unemployment has been cut in half and close to 200,000 new jobs have been created. In 2014, Mayor Garcetti led counties across the region in a successful bid to win the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership for Southern California — a federal initiative that strengthened the industrial ecosystem for aerospace and defense manufacturers, delivered $1.4 billion in public and private investment, and created more than 5,300 new jobs. Between 2013 and 2017, manufacturing in Los Angeles’ metropolitan economy grew 12% — from $79.9 billion to $89.2 billion.

LA MADE 4.0 is the latest initiative led by Mayor Garcetti to ensure the growth and success of Los Angeles’ manufacturing industry. Going beyond aerospace and defense, LA Made 4.0 will reach other core manufacturing sectors in Los Angeles including the food and beverage, biotechnology, and fashion industries. This effort will retrain 3,000 current manufacturing workers by 2022, providing them with the skills they need to secure smart manufacturing jobs in the future. Additionally, the partnership will place 400 workers in pre-apprenticeships for entry-level manufacturing jobs, and a further 100 people will be placed in apprenticeships by 2022.

CESMII, a $140 million public-private partnership focused on advancing smart manufacturing, will support workforce training programs to address critical skills and ensure LA MADE 4.0 trainees are ready to work with the technologies that are transforming manufacturing right now. Workers going through these programs will have access to a state-of-the-art maker space that is being developed by CESMII at UCLA.

“Smart manufacturing is about unlocking the potential of data to drive energy productivity and boost performance and precision,” said UCLA’s John Dyck, CEO of CESMII. “But none of that is possible if we don’t get workers ready to make the most of these new opportunities,”

Goodwill Southern California will provide training services through the Strong Workforce Apprenticeship Group, which has simplified the process for manufacturers to participate in apprenticeship programs.

“The Los Angeles Metro Area is home to over 11,000 manufacturers, most of which are family-owned and employ fewer than 60 workers,” said Patrick McClenahan, CEO of Goodwill Southern California. “These small firms don’t have the resources or time to adapt to ever evolving technologies on their own. Programs like this ensure that these manufacturers can continue to operate for generations.”

The USC Center for Advanced Manufacturing will also provide LA MADE 4.0 with access to advanced robotics, 3D printing, and augmented and virtual reality systems to create programming targeted at high school and middle school students in an effort to provide local youth with the resources required to succeed in advanced manufacturing jobs.

“USC is a vital source of engineering talent, but we need to provide much more than that for our manufacturing sector to be successful,” said Dr. SK Gupta, Director of the USC Center for Advanced Manufacturing. “We need a strong pipeline of technical talent coming into manufacturing to make sure that the industry will have long-term success.”