New-economy jobs don’t look the same everywhere. And the pathways that connect people, skills and employers can’t either.
That lesson was on display late last year in Westmoreland County, a county of roughly 350,000 people just east of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania’s less-populated western half.
One of the most consequential pieces of the effort is located in a former steel town still navigating the long aftermath of industrial collapse.
There, Westmoreland County Community College hosted a Build Back Better Showcase that quietly demonstrated how workforce strategy can span very different places and economic realities within the same county.
The event took place at the college’s Business & Industry Center in Youngwood, highlighting expanded robotics programs, a makerspace and a new composites technology initiative. But one of the most consequential pieces of the effort is located about 20 miles away, in New Kensington, a former steel town still navigating the long aftermath of industrial collapse.
The distance matters. Youngwood functions as the institutional hub. New Kensington is where the workforce challenge, and opportunity, is most acute.
Manufacturing hasn’t disappeared — it’s been remade
After years of economic development and workforce strategy, Westmoreland County’s manufacturing industry just might be ready for a rebound.
Manufacturing employment in the county fell by nearly a third between 2001 and 2019. But it has remained largely flat in recent years, at about 18,000, and the county still has a higher per-capita share of manufacturing jobs than the national average. The number of machinists in particular has grown in recent years: Close to 1,000 now.
Those jobs also pay. According to government data analyzed by Technical.ly, the average manufacturing employee in Westmoreland County earns more than $90,000 annually — a substantial income in a largely rural county. Median hourly wages for machinists exceeded $23 in 2024, or roughly $46,000 a year.
Westmoreland has 3.5 times as many machinists per capita as the national average, underscoring how central advanced manufacturing remains locally, even as the work becomes more technical and data-informed.
For comparison, about 700 people in the county were employed as software developers in 2024, earning median hourly wages north of $50. The jobs of the future exist here, just not at the scale or dominance seen in major tech hubs.
Connecting tools, training and employers
At the center of the college’s approach is MADE @ Westmoreland, a makerspace designed to lower barriers to modern production tools such as 3D printers, CNC machines and digital design software.
“It’s important to create an ecosystem that includes everything from startup entrepreneurs to large companies that create jobs,” said Ellie Ezzell Zyka, Innovation Accelerator Makerspace Network coordinator and project manager of strategy at the Regional Industrial Development Corporation. “The makerspaces RIDC has supported, including WCCC’s, are providing tools that help make the vision of these entrepreneurs a reality.”
So far, participants have included students, small business owners and adults earning equipment certifications. A representative involved with the program noted that the initial cohort largely consisted of people already connected to the college, with plans to expand access and open clearer on-ramps for displaced workers and career changers.
The college’s new composites technology program will be based at its New Kensington Education Center, intentionally close to where industrial reinvestment is already underway.
In 2023, advanced manufacturing firm Re:Build Manufacturing announced it would open its first full-scale production site in the former Alcoa Works along the Allegheny River, committing tens of millions of dollars and promising hundreds of jobs. Locating workforce training nearby shortens the distance between learning and employment, while reducing transportation and cost barriers that often shut residents out of technical education.
Why this matters
Across the U.S., many regions still depend on manufacturing, even if it no longer looks like it did in the 20th century. But workforce systems are often designed around metro tech hubs or generic retraining models that ignore local industry mix, wages and geography.
Westmoreland County offers a different blueprint: linking youth robotics, mid-career reskilling and employer-aligned training across multiple towns, rather than forcing a single solution onto very different places.
The work is supported by the $62.7 million federal Build Back Better Regional Challenge award aimed at strengthening Southwestern Pennsylvania’s robotics and advanced manufacturing cluster. But the New Economy Collaborative’s goals travel far beyond Western Pennsylvania.
For rural and mid-sized regions trying to connect residents to the next economy, the lesson may be less about chasing the “right” industry, and more about designing pathways that actually fit the place they already are.
