May 5—Coastal Pines Technical College is conducting a survey in the 13 counties it serves to help evaluate the programs it offers and determine programs to offer in the future.

The survey, called the Community Needs Assessment, starts with some background questions for business owners and managers including the primary county for business, number of employees, number of current job vacancies and if the business is planning to expand, downsize or stay about the same size over the next five years.

The survey includes lists of different fields: health care and related, construction and design, transportation and logistics, business technology, computer technology and programming, industrial systems and maintenance, emergency response and law enforcement, cosmetology and barbering, early childcare, hospitality services, media production, accounting, engineering technology, and legal and public services.

Under each of the fields, there are lists of jobs and services business owners are asked to check if they could be beneficial. For example, under the business technology, respondents are asked to check the box next to the list that includes applied business technology, banking and finance, business management, customer contact specialist, health information technology specialist, marketing management, entrepreneurship, and technical specialist.

The follow-up questions ask about programs not mentioned that would benefit your business or organization, specific jobs and number of positions anticipated to be needed in the next five years and a list of the jobs with the most frequent openings.

The survey ends with a box where respondents can add additional comments.

Ralph Staffins, president and CEO of the Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce, is encouraging business owners to fill out the survey and to forward to survey to other businesses to fill out.

"We know the labor market is an issue but to address those issues, they need input from you," he said. "I cannot stress enough the importance of this collection of data as it will be used to implement programming in our area. We need it to fit the needs of the business community."

To complete the survey, go to ies-pub.coastalpines.edu/surveys/2022_business_and_industry_survey_instrument.cfm.