Rep. Matsui Announces $1.8 Million Federal Grant to Train 300 Workers in Sacramento
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 01, 2011
CONTACT: MATSUI PRESS
(202) 225-7163
Rep. Matsui Announces $1.8 Million Federal Grant to Train 300 Workers in Sacramento
CA Today, Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento) announced that a $1.8 million federal grant has been awarded to the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA) for job training programs for displaced workers. As part of a larger $45 million grant awarded to the South Bay Workforce Investment Consortium through the Department of Labor's National Emergency Grants Program, SETA's $1,875,000 will provide 300 dislocated workers with job development and training for high demand and emerging occupations.
As the Sacramento economy continues to turn around, it is this type of federal investment that helps train displaced workers for new careers which will keep us on the path to recovery, said Congresswoman Matsui. And the types of emerging industries that this money will help prepare Sacramento workers for are not only going to be the ones that help us recover, but help us prosper.
The South Bay Workforce Investment Consortium consists of twenty-one geographically contiguous local workforce investment boards encompassing over half of the state's population, and 53% of its labor force. The full funding will serve about 5,900 of the over 32,000 workers affected by layoffs at 123 private and public sector employers located in twenty counties in central and southern California.
The National Emergency Grant funding that we received could not have come at a better time, said Kathy Kossick, SETA Executive Director. This grant will provide our agency the opportunity to serve unemployed public sector employees suffering from the reductions in local and state government jobs. Overall, this additional funding will allow us to provide industry-recognized training and job placement in emerging occupations. The goal is to help individual job-seekers overcome employment barriers and provide assistance in obtaining jobs offering livable wage employment and opportunities for growth.
There are a number of success stories that have come out of the program. With the help of SETA's On-the-Job Training Program and dislocated-worker placement services, Utility Partners of America was able to hire 35 program participants as it started a large-scale installation of electric meters representing nearly 600,000 devices for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).
Marbella Bianca Alford, one displaced worker who took part in SETA's On-the-Job Training Program, said, I really needed a job and was willing to take any job to pay the bills. I signed up for the SETA On-the-Job training program and was hired as a full time employee for LPC Consulting Associates. I am grateful for the OJT program which helps those out there like me trying to support a family and make tomorrow better than yesterday.
The jobs are coming, and we need to have a highly trained and prepared workforce ready to take them. That is exactly what this grant does, said Congresswoman Matsui.
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