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CHAMPION - While fear about the future of the area's largest employers persists, local elected leaders and educators are looking to retrain workers for the high-tech jobs of the future.

''This bill would channel dollars to train workers in alternate energy, biotech, advanced manufacturing and other high-tech jobs for the 21st century,'' Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Lorain, said Monday in speaking to reporters and leaders at Kent State University Trumbull Campus.

Brown joined Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, in introducing a bill called Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success,'' or SECTORS, which would target funding to boost specific job sectors.

The legislation, which is part of the larger Workforce Investment Act, would provide grants to help local business, education, labor and work force leaders coordinate job growth in sectors in which the area already has expertise, Brown said.

''Some of that already goes on but not by sector, and it's not organized. This would allow local businesses to figure out what sectors to be in,'' he said.

U.S. Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, D-Niles, who won an earmark worth nearly $239,000 that already is funding specialized training at Kent State University Trumbull, supports the effort as a way to further a Cleveland-to-Pittsburgh Tech Belt.

''A number of businesses can spring up in health care, green energy, medical devices. Industry will drive the training,'' he said.

Lawmakers noted despite the state's 9.2 percent jobless rate, demand still exists for skilled workers, especially for ''middle skill'' jobs that require more than a high school education but less than a four-year college degree.

KSU Trumbull Dean Wanda Thomas said such a program is greatly needed with the ailing economy. She added KSU Trumbull already is benefiting from Ryan's earmark grant to boost advanced manufacturing training.

Warren native Mike Garvey, whose M7 Technologies company in Youngstown does computer imaging for businesses, said training for the high-tech future is crucial.

''Everytime you go up a degree in complexity, the failure rate is 50 percent for a project,'' he said. ''To be competitive, (the nation) needs to go up two or three degrees. It may be four degrees locally.''

Brown said the bill containing the sector training legislation may come to a vote by year end.