Nashville Chamber of Commerce Delivers Annual Education Report

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce released its 30th Annual Education Report on Tuesday. This year, the Chamber recommendations focused on growing Metro Nashville Public Schools’ Work-Based Learning program.

In all, 131 students participated in MNPS’s work-based learning program during the 2021 – 2022 school year, as did 15 business partners. Students worked over 5,000 hours and received upwards of $70,000 in wages in year 1. The graduation rate of those students who participated in year 1 was 97 percent. 

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U.S. Economy Added 194,000 Jobs in September, Badly Missing Expectations

Person using a laptop, pointing to the screen

The U.S. economy reported an increase of 194,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.8%, according to Department of Labor statistics.

The number of unemployed people fell by 710,000 to 7.7  million, according to the Department of Labor statistics released Friday.   Economists projected that employers created 500,000f jobs in September, more than double the figure in August, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Despite the spike in employment, the labor market remains thin due to the pandemic, and job growth earlier in the year was considerably stronger, according to the WSJ.

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Chamber of Commerce Conference in Michigan to Require Coronavirus Vaccination, Offer Interaction ‘Comfort Level’ Wristbands

Detroit Regional Chamber Conference in 2020

The Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce conference later this month will require attendees to be vaccinated and offer them interaction “comfort level” wristbands to wear.

The Chamber event, which will take place September 20-23 on Mackinac Island, will also require masking in certain areas, despite the vaccination mandate.

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Commentary: It is Time to Fight for the Rights of Independent Businesses

As a very young man, I was fortunate enough to start my own company out of my apartment using a small amount of investment capital from friends and family. Over time, that business grew to have over 6,000 employees and revenues in excess of $2 billion. Over nearly a 40-year span, my team and I built what some would consider a remarkable track record, as measured by both sales and profits.

Because of my experience growing that business, I feel a special kinship with small, privately owned businesses and their owners. I also come from a middle-class background, one that shaped me into the person I am today. It is through both the lens of entrepreneur and member of the middle-class that I look through when reflecting upon this Independence Day.

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‘Operation Warp Speed for Jobs’: Worker Shortage Is Getting Worse, U.S. Chamber Says

Construction workers

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce characterized the worker shortage as a crisis that is hurting businesses of all sizes and slowing the nation’s economic recovery.

The biggest challenge U.S. businesses currently face is the lack of qualified workers to fill open jobs, according to the Chamber of Commerce’s America Works Report released Tuesday morning. The national Worker Availability Ratio (WAR) — or ratio of number of available workers to number of available jobs — has dropped over the last several months, the report found.

The current WAR is 1.4, meaning for every job opening there are one or two workers available, according to the America Works Report. The historical WAR average over the last 20 years is 2.8.

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Commentary: If The GOP Wants To Put America First, It Should Put The Chamber of Commerce in Its Place

Georgia Republicans want to make their elections work better after the 2020 disaster. They’ve proposed sensible measures to eliminate no-excuse absentee ballots, remove dubious ballot drop-off boxes, and reform early voting times. This effort would restore trust in the election process and ensure every ballot is legitimate. But, for some strange reason, this legislation has drawn the ire of the state’s business community.

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce last week expressed its “concern and opposition” to these measures in an official statement endorsed by Home Depot and Coca-Cola, two major corporations based in the Peach State. Black Lives Matter, Stacey Abrams, and other left-wing activists are pressuring these corporations and others to do more to oppose these election reform laws. They’re running TV and newspaper ads to strongarm companies into doing their bidding, and there’s a good chance the corporations eventually will bend the knee. Few corporations nowadays can resist the woke mobs.

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Commentary: What is Happening to Williamson Medical Center?

Tennessee Star

As soon as elections for Williamson County Commission were over in May 2018 the Commission gave the local Chamber of Commerce an additional annual $100K to promote more growth. The $1.5 million of county taxpayers’ money the Chamber has received over the last 5 years is clearly not an investment that is working out well for taxpayers.  In another expected post-election move the Commission raised county property by a modest 3.3%, the second increase in 3 years. This increase barely makes a dent in the liabilities the county has accumulated and will most assuredly be followed shortly by additional property tax increases.

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Nashville Chamber of Commerce and Partnership for a New American Economy Helping to Spread Liberal Immigration Policies

The Nashville Chamber of Commerce and the Partnership for a New American Economy, now known as The New American Economy (NAE), are helping spread liberal immigration policies. That work will be on display here in the Music City this coming Sunday, July 16, when the Nashville Chamber of Commerce hosts the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) annual convention. It was also on display in St. Louis in March, when “The New American Economy (NAE) and the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) came to St. Louis on March 22-23, 2017 to learn from the St. Louis Regional Chamber,the St. Louis Mosaic Project, the International Institute of St. Louis, and Welcoming Economies Global Network (WE Global).” The St. Louis event in March launched a joint NAE and ACCE project to network chamber of commerce leaders to focus on “the imperative for state, local, and federal policies that promote immigrant integration as an economic growth strategy.” During the ACCE convention in Nashville on Sunday, the NAE will be hosting an event similar to the one held in St. Louis using the opportunity to share its brand of advocacy for comprehensive immigration reform which highlights the work ethic and perceived business ambitions of legal and illegal immigrants over native-born…

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