Tag: Unemployment

Putting Their Prison Pasts Behind Them

Posted on by robbie

America’s criminal justice system currently houses more than 2 million people — that’s more per capita than any other nation on earth. Even worse: Many are repeat offenders who haven’t been offered the support or resources to get their lives back on track once released.
This, along with the stigma attached to a criminal record, has a devastating effect on their job prospects, with an estimated 60 percent still out of work one year after release.
A new initiative, backed in part by the singer John Legend, is hoping to reverse those dire statistics. Unlocked Futures is a joint project of the philanthropic fund New Profit, Bank of America and Legend’s own nonprofit, FreeAmerica.
Over the course of 16 months, the accelerator, which recently announced its inaugural class, will provide support, funding and mentoring to eight people chosen for their visionary prison-reform efforts. These social entrepreneurs have more in common than just a dedication to helping former inmates flourish on the outside: All of them have been either incarcerated themselves or impacted by the criminal justice system in some way.
“Too often are formerly incarcerated individuals locked out of job opportunities because of their past,” Legend said last spring, when Unlocked Futures was announced. “I have seen that entrepreneurship is a viable way for formerly incarcerated individuals to build sustainable livelihoods and contribute to their communities and neighborhoods.”

“This normalizes success ― others seeing us as actual human beings who can succeed even though we’ve gone to prison,” says Will Avila of the Unlocked Futures program.

The initiative will support entrepreneurship as a powerful pathway out of the incarceration cycle, which costs America $80 billion a year in hard dollars and untold billions more in its negative impact on vulnerable families and communities. By amplifying organizations built by those whose lives have been rocked by the judicial system, Unlocked Futures also hopes to change public perception about the humanity and potential of people who refuse to be defined by their worst mistake.
The ventures founded by the first cohort of entrepreneurs and nourished by Unlocked Futures range from an app called Flikshop that lets people send photo postcards to loved ones behind bars to the Bronx, N.Y.-based Hope House, which provides transitional housing for formerly incarcerated women.
After spending a chunk of his teens and 20s in prison, Will Avila founded Clean Decisions, a commercial kitchen cleaning company that exclusively employs formerly incarcerated men in Washington, D.C., and its nonprofit offshoot, Changing Perceptions, which provides job training and reentry support to recently released inmates. Avila credits Unlocked Futures with validating his efforts and for giving him the confidence to inspire others.
“We are always waiting for someone to come tell us that we did something wrong, and as we get more success we struggle to know what to do because we don’t feel like we deserve it or that we belong,” says Avila. “This normalizes success ― others seeing us as actual human beings who can succeed even though we’ve gone to prison.”
In the nation’s capital, where Avila grew up, 71 percent of returning citizens were unemployed in 2015.
“There are a lot of reasons that’s the case,” he says, “but we all have felt that pain, as well as the pain of homelessness, substance abuse to numb this pain and anger that leads to violence. For this reason, when we do start our own enterprises, we want to give back. Entrepreneurship is a powerful cycle because almost every returning citizen I know is crafting a business that helps others who have served time.”

Singer John Legend is one of the key backers of Unlocked Futures.

Amanda Alexander, founder of the Detroit Justice Center, which provides community lawyering services and economic opportunities to those in and around the prison system, asserts that there is a boldness to the group’s ideas, as well as a sense of urgency.
“Folks in the cohort are always talking about the brothers and sisters they left behind in prison and wanting to reach a hand back to them,” says Alexander, whose father was locked up during a portion of her childhood. “I was fortunate to have support through my dad’s incarceration, and that’s allowed us to have a lifelong relationship. I want the same for other families. My aim is to ensure that families caught up in the criminal justice system aren’t shut out of the city’s future.”
And, she adds, Unlocked Futures helps good ideas spread faster.
“Ultimately, it’s not about the eight of us and our work. It’s about movement building,” Alexander says. “Mass incarceration has touched every part of our society, so it’s going to take a broad movement to bring it down.”
As for Jason Cleveland, founder of tech platform Obodo, which helps nonprofits serving returning citizens streamline data and training systems, Unlocked Futures affirms what he’s long believed ― that there are real market opportunities within the prison-reform movement and that it is possible to both care and prosper.
“For too long, efforts to serve have been hampered by lack of access to capital and an outdated notion that to do good, a person or an organization needs to be impoverished themselves,” he says. “Entrepreneurship is not just about starting businesses; it is about seeing problems as opportunities. It is about seeing beyond the now to what is possible.”
Whenever Cleveland visits prisons around his home state of Missouri, teaching what he calls “the entrepreneurial mindset,” he encounters a glut of potential business leaders.
“Most people there do not understand that they are already entrepreneurs. They don’t see that they have been finding unique solutions to problems their entire lives,” Cleveland says. “Oftentimes, when these people are provided with a framework for making different decisions and given the tools they need to move forward, they do.”

Correction: A previous version of this article indicated that Amanda Alexander’s father had been incarcerated more than once during her childhood. NationSwell apologizes for the error.

Is the U.S. Ready for Universal Basic Income?

Posted on by robbie

It used to be considered radical. But the idea that a society could ease poverty and increase productivity by giving every one of its citizens a monthly or annual stipend, no strings attached, is no longer a far-fetched one in other parts of the world. And now some progressive leaders in the U.S. are pointing to the economic model’s alleged success in Europe in the hope that the notion takes root here, too.
The concept, known as a universal basic income (or UBI for short), is simple enough: Give citizens enough money every year, gratis, so that they can pay for necessary living expenses, like housing and food. In return, people will have the bandwidth to flex their creativity, become more productive and enjoy a better quality of life.
Not surprisingly, fiscal hawks and critics of entitlement programs are not on board.
“Unfortunately, a welfare state by any other name is still a welfare state. And a [UBI] is just replacing one pricey system for another,” writes Brittany Hunter, an editor with the Foundation for Economic Education. “Unlike the current welfare state, which has standards for determining who qualifies for certain aid, a UBI would be given to everyone. This would dramatically increase the pool of citizens receiving benefits from the state and inflict massive expenses across the board.”
Hunter’s critique came on the heels of a study conducted by the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, which found that providing $12,000 each year to Americans would increase jobs by 2 percent and grow the economy by $2.5 trillion by 2025.   
Though the idea of a universal basic income in the U.S. has been tossed around for decades, the rise in automation has put the idea at the forefront of current economic arguments in developed countries, where robots are poised to take over more jobs and provide less opportunities in the future.

THE VIEW ACROSS THE POND

In mid-September, the University of Bath’s Institute for Policy Research found that nearly half of Britons would welcome a basic level of income to cover essential needs, with only 26 percent of those surveyed opposing its introduction. The reactions aren’t necessarily surprising, as the Scottish government recently announced plans to test a UBI system by giving citizens £150, or about $200, per week.
Though the move is revolutionary in the United Kingdom, it’s not unheard of in other parts of Europe. Last year, several European countries introduced the idea of trying out basic income, ranging from giving a modest €560 a month to 2,000 unemployed adults in Finland (the equivalent of about $660) to doling out 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,573) each month in Switzerland.
The Swiss held a vote for the monthly stipend in June 2016 — the first time a country has ever put the proposal on a ballot — but it was overwhelmingly voted against by nearly 3 to 1. Opposition groups claimed that the country’s high living standard, combined with its open borders, would make for complications.
Finland, meanwhile, has boasted anecdotal evidence of success, with residents reporting that the basic income has allowed them to start their own businesses and has reduced stress. But some economists argue that the Finnish program, which was implemented to replace unemployment benefits (though recipients are still awarded the monthly stipend even after they secure work), has only pushed people to lower-paying jobs with lower productivity.
“Universal basic income can only succeed if the effort is sustained and widespread — and not available only to the unemployed,” wrote economists Antti Jauhiainen and Joona-Hermanni Mäkinen in The New York Times. “The program should not be intended to force people into low-paying jobs.”

ONE NATION, UNDER UBI

So can a UBI model work in America?
In a way, it’s already here, to some extent. Alaskan residents have gotten a portion of the state’s $55 billion oil fund each year for the past four decades. Last year, the dividend from the fund was $2,052 each for 643,000 Alaskans, before Gov. Bill Walker axed that amount by half.
Farther south in Silicon Valley, the tech incubator Y Combinator has launched a UBl study that aims to provide roughly 1,000 Oakland families with up to $2,000 a month.
“I think it’s good to start studying this early,” wrote Y Combinator President Sam Altman in a blog post. “I’m fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of this at a national scale.”
The reality is that automation in America will reduce jobs for low- and even middle-wage workers by close to 50 percent, according to some estimates, and there is a worry that cashiers who are put out of work won’t exactly be in the position to become engineers overnight. The U.S. has already started to feel the squeeze, with about 5 million jobs lost as a result of automation.
American business leaders and progressive politicians have taken notice. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among others, have all endorsed the idea of a UBI.
“There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better,” echoed Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, earlier this year. “And if my assessment is correct and [jobs are lost to automation], then we have to think about: What are we going to do about it? I think some kind of universal basic income is going to be necessary.”
Continue reading “Is the U.S. Ready for Universal Basic Income?”

3 Cities Where Job Growth Is Happening

Posted on by robbie

There were significantly fewer jobs added to the U.S. economy in March 2017, just 98,000, the smallest increase since May 2016.  While the unemployment rate is 4.5 percent, underemployment continues to plague Americans, hovering around 14 percent in 2017.  But there are a few bright spots where some people are getting back to work.

Beckley, W.Va.

The loss of 127,000 mining jobs has devastated the Appalachian region, but Beckley, W.Va., is proving that there’s employment opportunities post-coal.
Over the last 12 months, Beckley reduced its unemployment rate by 2.5 percent, the largest year-over-year decrease nationwide, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Beckley is relying on strategic partnerships between development agencies, schools and businesses to create jobs. One such initiative, the New River Gorge Regional Development Authority, provides relevant employment training in forestry, agribusiness and manufacturing and funnels workers directly into jobs upon completion — often without the need to submit a resume.
WorkForce West Virginia, a state-run agency, also has a branch in Beckley. Paid, on-the-job training in high-growth fields like welding, electrical engineering and diesel technology is available to unemployed coal workers and displaced homemakers entering the workforce for the first time.
“It’s like the old saying: ‘As one door closes, another one opens.’ As a state, we have to work together to identify those doors and open them,” says Dr. John Deskins, director of West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research.

Ames, Iowa

Higher education does more than just improve one’s employment prospects. It’s also a job creator.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that Ames, Iowa, has lowest unemployment rate in the nation: 2.1 percent. It’s held this designation 12 times in the past 24 months.
The key to Ames’s workforce boom? A longstanding employer.
“What can’t be understated in the Ames region is the presence of a large number of public sector employment opportunities with the presence of Iowa State University, where there has been considerable [job] growth over the last 36 months,” says Dan Culhane, CEO of the Ames Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Commission.
Fueling the college’s employment numbers is a 40 percent increase in enrollment during the past decade.
Culhane predicts this enrollment surge will cool within the next few years. To counteract it, the city is creating an internship program that will serve as an employment pipeline to retain recent university grads. It’s also making long-term investments by connecting industry leaders with local school districts to introduce students to employment opportunities in Ames.

Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City successfully conquered homelessness, and now it’s doing the same for unemployment.
Tied with Denver for lowest unemployment rate in a city with more than 1 million residents (3.2 percent), Salt Lake City is taking a creative approach to jobs. Literally.
When Mayor Jackie Biskupski took office in January 2016, she elevated the city’s economic development division to its own department, creating an umbrella over business development, redevelopment, and interestingly enough, the arts council.
“Generally you don’t think of arts as economic development, but it is. People want to live in cool places,” says City Economic Development Director Lara Fritts. As part of its Cultural Core Action Plan, the city is incorporating public art into all development projects, creating jobs for local artists. Salt Lake City’s investment in arts and culture is paying off — the city was recently named the top U.S. city for millennials. And statewide, Utah is experiencing impressive growth in creative jobs: 3.7 percent compared to 2.9 percent in the other sectors.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JOB CREATION, CHECK OUT THIS ADDITIONAL READING:
What the Unemployment Rate Does — and Doesn’t — Say About the Economy, Pew Research Center
Tech Jobs Are Thriving Nationwide — Up 7.3 million, USA Today
Series: Coal Is Dying — Coal Country Doesn’t Have to: Creating the Post-Coal Economy in Appalachia, Fast Company
Factors for Enabling the Creative Economy, World Economic Forum

5 Cities Where Successful Wage Growth Is Happening

Posted on by robbie

For several years after the 2008 market crash, the economic recovery was seen only in corporate earnings statements and consistent job reports. Family paychecks, meanwhile, didn’t keep pace. Average hourly wages rose at an anemic 2 percent from 2010 to 2014 — and that’s not accounting for inflation. Worse, US workers’ pay had lagged behind other indicators for nearly a decade, the result of bloated executive salaries, global outsourcing of jobs and capital investments in mechanization.

But in the last two years, that dynamic has begun to shift. Unemployment bottomed out at 4.6 percent last year (down from a high of 10 percent in 2009), meaning businesses needed to pay more to recruit and retain employees. Last October, wage growth hit a high of 2.8 percent nationwide.

In which cities has the average worker seen the biggest comparative bump in pay, as measured by higher wages and more work hours? (Hint, three are in blue states, two in red, and not one can claim more than a million residents.) Donald Trump’s 2016 victory in the Electoral College revealed the regional inequities, between the coast and the heartland, that divide our country. As a way to bridge those separations, NationSwell dug into the data to find out what drove better pay in these metro areas, offering five methods for the next administration to consider.

Hot-air balloons soar above Balloon Fiesta Park during the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

5. Albuquerque, N.M.

Population:559,121
Wage growth in 2016:5.70%
Average weekly pay:$745, up from $703

Statewide, New Mexico’s economy has struggled to make a comeback. At the end of 2015, the Land of Enchantment logged 17,300 fewer non-farm jobs than in pre-recession 2007. But after taking a years-long beating (including more than a doubling in meth overdoses), the state’s biggest city, Albuquerque, is starting to show signs of progress.
Historically, the city has relied on federal spending for a slew of jobs at Sandia National Laboratories, which focuses primarily on weapons, and Kirtland Air Force Base. If President Trump pumps money into defense, the city will likely be a prime beneficiary. But reliance on public dollars “is not a growth industry,” noted Jim Peach, a New Mexico State University economics professor, last year.
To capitalize on government investment, the city is trying to establish the high desert as a hub for science and technology companies. They’re sharing technical discoveries from the national labs (and the state university’s flagship campus) with local small businesses. And they’re also hoping to attract more semiconductor manufacturers near Intel’s chip-making facilities in Rio Rancho, a half-hour drive from downtown. The high-paying jobs in those sectors could power Albuquerque back into full recovery.

The new U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis will host the Super Bowl next year.

4. Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minn.

Population:711,790
Wage growth in 2016:5.97%
Average weekly pay:$998, up from $938
In February 2018, Minneapolis will play host to America’s most watched televised event: the Super Bowl, to be held at U.S. Bank Stadium. (St. Paul will host an accompanying winter carnival, featuring a gigantic ice palace, to draw spectators across the river.) The NFL’s imprimatur is just the latest sign that businesses are increasingly eyeing the Twin Cities for development opportunities. “The number one thing is that people who make decisions for business now have a much more positive view of Minneapolis, and look at us for business expansion,” said Mayor Betsy Hodges, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
To prep for the crowds who’ll be streaming into town to watch football, the city is also shoring up a shopping district in the city center, which has been battered by competition from suburban malls and online retailers. At the moment, a Macy’s department store is the last remaining anchor, but a $50 million revival plan for Nicollet Mall promises to make it a “must-see destination in downtown,” said David Frank, the city’s planning and economic development director.
All that new business means more workers are making more money, thanks to a red-hot 3 percent unemployment rate and a recent change in state law. Last August, a raise in Minnesota’s minimum wage went into effect. At $9.50 an hour for large employers, the hike lands the state near the top of guaranteed minimums. And as debate over a citywide standard of $15 per hour becomes the defining issue of this year’s mayoral campaign — Mayor Hodges recently flip-flopped her position to support the wage bump — compensation seems likely to continue trending upward.

A view of downtown Charlotte, N.C.

3. Charlotte, N.C.

Population:827,097
Wage growth in 2016:7.94%
Average weekly pay:$983, up from $905
If the number of new housing units rising across this Southern city is any indicator, people desperately want to move to Charlotte. At the beginning of last year, construction had begun on more than 12,300 units, and another 13,500 more were planned. The buyers? Foreign-born immigrants who’ve made a home in the New South, young millennials (including Villanova grads) who’ve found plenty of jobs to be had in Charlotte’s banking and advanced manufacturing sectors, and former exurbanites moving back to the city core.
“During the Great Recession, the sprawling developments in the exurbs ground to a halt,” Brian Leary, president of a local development firm, told Curbed. So those people moved closer to the central business district and the expanding light-rail system. “People are craving connectivity to each other and experiences, and those places that can deliver the most experiences in an accessible way can command premiums and value over time.”
Charlotte won that appeal despite the controversy over H.B. 2, the so-called “bathroom bill” that forces trans people to use facilities that match the gender on their birth certificate. The state law, which was drafted in response to a local anti-discrimination ordinance in Charlotte, led to boycotts and unknown quantities of lost revenue. A new governor could overturn the controversial legislation, which in turn could accelerate new business.

2. Nashville–Davidson, Tenn.

Population:654,610
Wage growth in 2016:10.07%
Average weekly pay:$904, up from $812

Another Southern city growing at breakneck speed, Nashville has capitalized on its reputation as a destination for creatives to attract newcomers. Seeking out the city’s robust music scene, tourists continue to stream into Nashville. For 70 months in a row, the hordes of visitors broke records for nightly hotel stays; by the end of the rush last October, Nashville set an all-time record, beating out Houston’s 59-month streak. “We have music, a cool brand, Music City Center and Opryland,” plus two convention centers, Butch Sypridon, CEO of Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp., boasted to The Tennessean.

Now that the city is expanding, officials are moving to the next checklist item they must fulfill to stay on an upward trajectory: luring high-wage employers — an important task, given that Tennessee has no statewide minimum wage. To do so, Nashville is trying to keep as many Vanderbilt alumni in town as possible, while also welcoming foreign immigrants.

The population is there to make Nashville a major economic powerhouse, if the city can attract the right firms. ”If we didn’t have 1,500 people moving to town every month, we won’t have the job growth that we’re having,” said Ralph Schulz, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s CEO. “Before you had to have the jobs and the population came. That’s not the case anymore. Now it’s workforce, then jobs [follow].” If job openings outpace new residents, expect wages to rocket even higher.

West Loockerman Street in Dover, Del.

1. Dover, Del.

Population:37,522
Wage Growth in 2016:14.05%
Average Weekly Pay:$764, up from $656
Perhaps the most unexpected entrant on the list, the tiny town of Dover, Delaware’s state capital and second largest city, recorded the largest percentage jump in wages in the nation. The payoff is the result of a 10-year comprehensive plan Kent County officials laid out in 2007, which emphasized attracting new companies without losing the area’s farmland and rural charm.
One of the biggest boons to Dover’s economy has been the aviation industry, anchored at Dover Air Force Base. Taking advantage of the military’s need for supplies, the state is building an Air Cargo Ramp that can accommodate large civilian carriers, about the same size as four Boeing 747 planes. The city has also been aided by expansions at several factories, including bra-producer Playtex and food giant Kraft, and a surge in entrepreneurship; in 2015, the dollars loaned to small businesses statewide shot up 156 percent.
On top of that, Dover punches above its weight in attracting some 2 million tourists annually, generating half a billion in revenue countywide. Visitors are drawn by state parks, casinos, NASCAR races and music festivals, like the 80,000-attendee Firefly. “I met a fairly new resident of Kent County a few weeks ago who lives in one of our newer housing developments,” Cindy Small, Kent County’s tourism director, told the local paper. “She mentioned that out of 30 or so homes, 28 of them have been purchased by non-Delawareans. You can bet they were visitors first. They came, they experienced; they relocated.”
It should be noted that Dover’s wages at the beginning of 2016 were, by far, lowest among the top five performers, making it all the easier to notch big gains among its small population. But the town did so even after Delaware upped the state’s minimum wage to $8.25 an hour in June 2015. Even after the change, this booming town’s average pay has continued to rise, perhaps fueled by a still relatively cheap cost of living and an influx of consumer spending.

The Strange Bedfellows Working to Save the Honeybee, Why Uber Is Getting in the Business of Public Transit and More

Posted on by robbie

A Swarm of Controversy, WIRED
Can environmentalists and Big Agriculture come together to save honeybees? It’s a question Jerry Hayes, a former hive inspector turned Monsanto scientist, asks constantly. As conservationists blame Hayes’s company for colony collapse, he asks humans to learn something from the bees: how to cooperate for the hive’s sake.

Welcome to Uberville, The Verge
An experiment in an Orlando suburb could change the face of public transit. As part of a contract between Altamonte Springs, Fla. and Uber, local government subsidizes intra-city rides with the startup and fronts additional funds when connecting with mass transit. Critics argue that the plan isn’t accessible to low-income and disabled riders, but Altamonte officials say the deal was the only affordable way to connect the suburb’s sprawl.

Chicago Tackles Youth Unemployment As It Wrestles with Its Consequences, Chicago Tribune
Applying for a first job in Chicago can feel “like trying to go across Lake Michigan,” insiders say. Rap sheets or typo-laden résumés can ward off employers, and inaccessible transit through high-crime areas can discourage adolescents — disconnecting 41 percent of the Second City’s 18–24 year olds from work or school. Fortunately, a bevy of groups are helping this vulnerable group land work.

How This Company Is Using Gaming To Teach Job Skills

Posted on by robbie

It’s a common belief that young people play too many video games. Interestingly, one company thinks it’s found a way to tap that love of gaming to fight youth unemployment.
Cognotion founders Jonathon Dariyanani and Joanna Schneier knew something must be done to combat employee apathy and unemployment. Their unique solution? A series of software programs that combats employee turnover through the use of interactive games and simulation trials. The software teaches the hard skills required for the job, but also soft skills, such as how to convey empathy to annoyed customers or to analyze situational clues to solve a problem.
In 2013, 73 million youths were unemployed worldwide, according to the International Labor Organization, and in July the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 14 percent youth unemployment rate compared to 6.3 percent overall. Cognotion’s founders felt like something needed to be done.
“We really felt that after waiting for 10 years for disruption to the system, that a lot of the human potential which could be unlocked through the use of educational technology hadn’t yet [been invented],” Dariyanani tells Next City.
Right now, Cognotion has software for hotel clerks, government workers, retail cashiers and customer service representatives, and recently developed a medical game regarding the Ebola virus to train 20,000 doctors and nurses.
“We find that when we present the same industry-specific, job-specific information that’s contained in a training manual to somebody in the form of a game or with a mentor, it increases absorption, comprehension and retention,” Dariyanani explains to Next City. “We believe these sorts of products provide trackable, actionable and immediate educational benefits, so you’re meeting the learner where they are.”
MORE: The Program Giving Workers Without College Degrees a Leg Up

The Standout Efforts That Are Getting Americans Back to Work

Posted on by robbie

After four years as an assistant branch manager at Hudson Valley Bank in Bridgeport, Conn., Dora Coriano was laid off in August 2013, when the bank left the state.
Coriano, who’s 58, soon discovered that finding a new job wasn’t as easy as it had been the last time she’d been unemployed, 15 years prior. “In 1998, you could literally grab a stack of resumes and pound the pavement,” she says. “You went from door to door … you left your resume, you got called, and you got the job.”
A year after losing her position at the bank, and submitting more than 75 job applications, Coriano still hasn’t found full-time work. Instead, she has joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed.
“It’s been really disheartening,” Coriano says. “That’s how I feel — like I’m stuck.”
Despite a dropping unemployment rate, which hit 5.8 percent in October, 9 million people nationwide are like Coriano — stuck without a job.
Across the country, people are working to determine the best way to help those jobseekers find employment. Economists, analysts, policy-makers and not-for-profits are all seeking the antidote to unemployment, so they’re trying out different programs that train or retrain the jobless, help them achieve certifications or land internships.
Several approaches are showing promise. From paid apprenticeships to beefed-up community college programs and public-private partnerships, here’s a look at some of the ways people are getting back to work — including Coriano.
Placing Workers in Apprenticeships
Organizations looking to bridge the gap between job training and job placement are increasingly turning to the apprenticeship model. One of the most successful of these is Apprenticeship Carolina, an initiative of the South Carolina technical college system.
While Apprenticeship Carolina’s main focus is to help businesses that want to expand, says Brad Neese, program director, “a really positive byproduct is that these companies are going to hire South Carolinians.”
Funded by the state, Neese and his crew of consultants help companies to establish apprenticeship programs by connecting them with technical colleges around the state. “We meet with them and discuss the needs of the company,” says Neese. “We personalize the process, and it’s all free.”
So far, it’s working. Apprenticeship Carolina started with 90 companies in 2007. Today, it’s working with more than 700 businesses and over the past seven years has placed almost 11,000 apprentices (in fields ranging from manufacturing to health care).
Seeking Out Trained Talent
While training programs are reaching out to potential employers, some successful programs start the other way around.
In St. Louis, the aircraft company Boeing approached the local community college to set up a 10-week program for would-be assembly mechanics. The class is free for students (paid for by Boeing), and the company hires 87 percent of those who complete it, says Becky Epps, program director.
In Newark, N.J., the Ford Motor Co. sponsored an automotive technical program at the New Community Workforce Development Center. In nine months, students are trained and certified and then placed in jobs through established relationships with Ford, Nissan and Toyota, says the program’s director, Rodney Brutton.
“The placement rate is 60 percent, which is great in this line of work,” he says.
The Ford program helped a mechanic named Tom after he was laid off. Although he had 20 years’ experience, he found he couldn’t get another job without new certifications. All he heard was, “Leave your number and we’ll give you a call.” No one called.
After completing the program, Tom ended up getting 10 certifications, updated his resume and “started hearing from the dealerships,” he says.
Now, he says, he’s making over $25 per hour, and he’s no longer one of the country’s 9 million unemployed workers.
Linking Companies and Community Colleges
Community colleges can play a key role in workforce development. Recognizing that fact, the White House in September announced $450 million in grants to the schools, aimed at improving job training programs.
One popular movement in job training programs, according to Lauren Eyster, a researcher at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, is to build strong connections with hiring companies, so that trainees can be channeled right into waiting jobs that need their new skills.
Both of these trends are converging at Cape Cod Community College, in West Barnstable, Mass., which won one of the recent federal grants. The school is creating two 12-month programs to train workers to inspect and repair airplanes and airplane engines, in response to the needs of area employers.
“There’s enormous support for this,” says Michael Gross, director of communication. He says the school has letters of support from JetBlue, Delta and Cape Air, which will be looking to hire the first graduates of the program.
Supporting Struggling Students
While community colleges can set people up for new careers, some students have significant obstacles to overcome first, like lack of transportation, child care or money for books.
“The other piece of this is, once you get them into these programs, how do you get them to complete?” says Eyster. “The latest number I saw was only 40 percent of community college students graduate in six years.”
Eyster says some colleges are starting to employ “navigators” to help guide students through school. At the Accelerating Opportunity: Kansas (AO-K) program at Washburn Tech, in Topeka, Kan., students learn technical skills while earning GEDs, with assistance from a navigator provided along the way.
“These students are under-resourced in every way you can imagine,” says Gillian Gabelman, associate dean at Washburn Tech. The navigator helps connect students to social services like child care and veterans benefits.
“The transformation of the students is extraordinary,” Gabelman says. For example, a woman who dropped out of high school to have a baby has been able to go into medicine, and a reformed drug addict went through technical training and is working for a local manufacturer, she says.
Reversing the Snowball of Unemployment
Now Coriano, the unemployed bank worker, may be on a new path to employment, too.
After a year without work, her savings dwindling, Coriano enrolled in a program in Bridgeport called Platform to Employment, aimed specifically at the long-term unemployed, who often face snowballing challenges.
The longer people are out of work, the less attractive they can be to employers and the more discouraged they get. Platform to Employment tries to address both of those challenges with a two-pronged approach.
The first is a full-time five-week course of job preparation classes. “It’s not a job training program,” says Tom Long, vice president of communications and development. “It’s more about taking someone who’s ready to be back at work and helping them improve their confidence and readiness.”
During the course, Coriano and other participants learn how to present their best selves to employers, to develop their “personal brand” and to “conquer their fear about their own limitations,” Long says. They also meet with a behavioral health specialist and learn how to deal with the stress and psychological struggles that come from long-term unemployment.
The second part of the Platform to Employment approach is to place participants in jobs with local employers for a two-month “tryout,” paid for by the program. The try-before-you-buy system allows employers to take a chance on a new employee with no financial risk, since private foundation funding pays for wages.
After a successful pilot program in Bridgeport in 2011, Platform to Employment recently completed a 10-city nationwide expansion. And, with $3.5 million in funding from the Connecticut Legislature, the program is spreading across that state.

What Do You Get When You Combine Those In Need of a Job with Local Food?

Posted on by robbie

Most of us know Goodwill as a place to find affordable donated household products and clothing. But Goodwill Industries of Northern Michigan (GINM) has something edible up their sleeves.
It’s called Farm to Freezer, and since 2013, this initiative has been providing training and jobs for the unemployed, as well as frozen local food to the community. It’s pretty much a win-win-win: farmers are able to extend their growing season, unemployed or underemployed people gain food skills and the community has more healthy food options.
The process starts with GINM buying food — including asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, apples, strawberries, cherries, Kohlrabi, Romanesco broccoli and saskatoons — from local farms and growers. The produce is then taken to a communal kitchen where trainees process and freeze it using a blast freezer. Once frozen, it’s put into cold storage where it can be sold to retail outlets, restaurants and industrial buyers. Currently, Farm to Freezer works with 16 farms (a jump from just four last year) and sells its product at 19 retail locations and nine school districts.
Participants of the GINM training program include those living in the Goodwill Inn homeless shelter and people recovering from addiction treatment. This year, the program has 21 trainees, some of whom have already found jobs through Farm to Freezer or are currently working with the organization, an increase from last year’s group of 15.
Mark Coe was working at Calvin Lutz Farm in Kavlevo, Mich. when the idea struck him that Goodwill should add local food to its repertoire. Now, he’s head of Farm to Freezer. “Farm to Freezer is a stepping stone to gainful employment,” Coe tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “We start with a ServSafe training class. It is a two-week program and when the trainees finish the class they have the opportunity to come into Farm To Freezer as an apprentice to learn the processing and freezing of locally purchased fruits and vegetables.”
With that, Goodwill is showing that it has an adept green thumb at growing not just produce, but jobs, too.
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For Companies Unsure About How to Find the Right Vets to Hire, a New Website Has the Answers

Posted on by robbie

Most employers have a pretty good idea about how to find recent college graduates to hire: running an internship program or visiting university job fairs are two great ways. But when businesses want to hire veterans — to gain good employees and to do their part to lower the veteran unemployment rate — some of them don’t know where to begin. But that’s about to change.
Recently, the website Employer Roadmap launched to help answer employers’ questions about hiring vets and their spouses and to connect veterans with businesses looking for specific skills.
The website, a joint project of Hiring Our Heroes and USAA, went live during a Veterans Jobs Summit at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg. Kathryn Dill of Forbes spoke to Eric Eversole, the executive director of Hiring Our Heroes and the vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about what Employer Roadmap aims to accomplish: “There’s really no one-size-fits-all approach to helping companies recruit, hire, and retain veteran talent,” Eversole said. “This allows businesses to self-asses, and then we can deliver more customizable solutions.”
Part of the website’s mission is to educate employers on such matters like why hiring veterans’ spouses can still be a good idea — despite the fact that they often have gaps in their resumes brought on by frequent moves. Employer Roadmap also includes resources about how to recruit and train veterans and encourages employers to get to know the veterans already working for them and ask for their assistance in recruiting more service members.
While some larger companies are able to launch their own initiatives to train and hire veterans (think: Microsoft, Tesla, and General Motors), smaller companies might not have the resources to set up such a program. And that’s where Employer Roadmap comes in.
Army veteran Geoff Grant, USAA program director, told Dill, “Small to medium sized businesses say, ‘I don’t have this huge HR budget, what do I do to hire one or two vets? Where do I find them?’ That’s where the best practices tool is really key.”
Of the estimated 1.5 million veterans that are expected to join the civilian workforce in the next five years, we’re sure that many of them will find employment, thanks to Employer Roadmap.
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Instead of Letting Veterans Struggle Post Service, GM Trains Them for Dealership Employment

Posted on by robbie

Many Army veterans know a thing or to about maintaining vehicles. And if they can keep a tank running smoothly, fixing a car should be a piece of cake, right?
That’s what General Motors and Raytheon think, which is why the two companies are teaming up with the U.S. Army to offer veterans jobs in car dealerships. According to David Shepardson of The Detroit News, GM has more car lots than any other auto maker in the U.S. — 4,300 of them, to be exact — and the company estimates it’ll need 2,500 technicians to staff them in the coming years. And with the Army planning to reduce its size from 574,000 to 450,000, there will be thousands of veterans looking for good jobs.
So kicking off this month at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, is the 12-week-long Shifting Gears: Automotive Technician Training Program. In order for Army members to obtain the skills needed to gain a civilian job before they’re discharged, the Raytheon-developed program is held on the base. GM pays for the training and connect graduates from it to jobs in their dealerships across the country.
Lynn Dugle, president of Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, says, “Young Army veterans face unemployment rates that are more than double the national average. Raytheon sees this partnership with GM and the Army as an opportunity to reduce those alarming statistics by helping position former service members for new opportunities.”
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, deputy chief of staff for personnel, said at the Pentagon event, “Soldiers transitioning to civilian life bring exceptional training, values and experience to American communities and their civilian workforce. Properly supporting our veterans requires a team approach from the Army, other government agencies and the local community.”
Along with GM and Raytheon, more and more companies, including Tesla and Microsoft, are stepping up to help veterans transition into civilian jobs. Here’s to hoping that this assistance continue to trend.
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