MERIDIAN, Miss.

Job training is coming to the Internet in East Mississippi and West Alabama.

Electrical wiring, gear drive maintenance and drill press operation are some of the skills being made available through the West Alabama, East Mississippi Alliance (WAEM), which brings together eight community and junior colleges from Mississippi and Alabama.

"These four community colleges in Mississippi and four in Alabama, and the

Montgomery Institute here in Meridian, are recognizing that the way we've had a big surge in job growth in Mississippi the last couple of years that pretty soon our biggest problem is going to be that we don't have enough skilled labor for the new jobs," Gov. Haley Barbour said Monday at the announcement.

The system, which is being described as anytime, anywhere training is being purchased from Amatrol of Jeffersonville, Ind.

Nearly 500 interactive manufacturing modules are currently available. Officials said such virtual training puts East Mississippi and West Alabama on the forefront of technology.

"We are competing globally and to compete globally, you can't think locally," said Bill Johnson of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, who represented Alabama Gov. Bob Riley at the announcement.

"That's what this is about. We've got our states in joint partnership," he said.

The WAEM Alliance was formed through the WIRED initiative and will use $4 million in investments to help support the training system.

Barbour said using the power of two states will help both succeed in the future.

"Alabama supported Mississippi on the Toyota plant. We supported them on the KC-30, the new refueling airplane for the Air Force," said Barbour. "What we are trying to do now is see if we can have a project, or some projects, where they're both in Alabama and Mississippi where we can share the project."

Because the training is available online and can be done at a person's own pace, there is virtually no limit to the number of workers that can be trained in a year, officials said.