Job-training programs come under scrutiny in Congress, By Rob Hotakainen, June 27, 2011, Miami Herald: “After working for seven years as a receptionist, Teresa Sawyer knew how to use a typewriter and a photocopier when she got laid off in 2008, but she knew nothing about computers. Sawyer, 60, of Gig Harbor, Wash., sent out hundreds of resumes but didn’t get a single response, leading her to conclude that she was unemployable. But with a little help from a federal job-training program, Sawyer went back to school to learn how to be a medical office professional. After receiving a two-year associate in applied science degree from Tacoma Community College this month, she has no fears of landing a job. ‘None at all, not with the skill that I have. … I never dreamed I would do this,’ she said. Despite their popularity with many members of Congress and their constituents, however, job-training programs have come under increased scrutiny this year on Capitol Hill, and the attention is about to intensify…”
Tag: Workforce development
State Job Training Programs
- Georgia Work$ expands, By Christine Vestal, September 20, 2010, Stateline.org: “When Augusta Roosa lost her accounting job at a restaurant on Jekyll Island, Georgia, she figured it would be just a matter of time before she landed another job in her line of work. But after six months of looking, she decided to go for a long shot. ‘I knew the back of the restaurant so I figured ‘why not learn the front?” says 29-year-old Roosa. The trick was getting a local restaurant owner to give her a chance to prove she could learn everything she needed to know on the job. That’s where a nationally recognized program called Georgia Work$ came in. Started in 2003, it allows jobless workers to become trainees for selected businesses at no cost to the employers. Starting today (Sept. 20), Georgia is more than doubling the number of people who can benefit from the program by opening it up to anyone without a job, not just those collecting unemployment checks, as originally designed…”
- Utah incentive helps put people ‘Back to Work’, By Mike Gorrell, September 20, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune: “Javier Mendez married Marquita Luker on Aug. 18, so it was not a good time for him to be out of work. But he was, laid off a couple of months earlier from a gritty job removing asbestos from older buildings. So the 32-year-old Taylorsville man was eager to take advantage of a new Utah Department of Workforce Services program that offers companies an incentive – worth up to $2,000 – to hire people receiving unemployment insurance benefits. ‘That’s like a gimme,’ Mendez said last week while working among a crisscrossing grid of pipes running in and out of a chiller unit at the $20.5 million JL Sorenson Recreation Center being built in Herriman by Layton Construction. His new company, Thermal West, is one of the first to participate in the state agency’s ‘Back to Work’ program, which began in July. The department has received enough federal funding through the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program to find work for up to 2,500 recipients of unemployment insurance benefits and 700 out-of-work youth. How? By offering companies the $2,000 subsidy if they hire someone off the active unemployment rolls and put them to work for three months, at a guaranteed minimum wage of $9 an hour…”
Unemployment Benefits and Job Programs – Georgia, New Jersey
- Ga. work program grows, attracts followers, By Christine Vestal, September 10, 2009, Stateline.org: “As states struggle to help legions of jobless workers find employment, some are seeking advice from Georgia, where a growing number of people are landing jobs as a result of free tryouts sponsored by the state unemployment system. The program, dubbed Georgia Works, is so simple that experts say other states should have no problem replicating it…”
- As unemployment benefits run out, Jersey’s jobless wait for extension, By Trish G. Graber, September 11, 2009, Star-Ledger: “Unemployment insurance benefits will dry up for an estimated 33,000 New Jerseyans today, and the state estimates another 3,500 to 4,000 will receive final checks each week through the end of the year as residents exhaust their benefits. Help for the unemployed now rests with Congress, where pending legislation would extend benefits, probably for another 13 weeks. In the Garden State, and many other states, out-of-work residents can collect unemployment for 79 weeks. In New Jersey, the maximum weekly benefit is $584, and the federal stimulus law allows for an additional $25…”