The public can comment through June 22 on proposed changes to the Idaho Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act and employment and re-employment services programs for 2009-2010.
The Workforce Investment Act programs, financed with a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor that is now being supplemented by $6 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, are targeted at disadvantaged low-income adults and youth and dislocated workers.
Although significant, the combined grant amounts are still less than the one-year grant of over $15 million received by the state for these programs in 2002. Because resources remain limited, programs will focus on helping a greater number of adults and dislocated workers impacted by the recession and at-risk, low-income, out-of-school youth, who have significant barriers to employment. Seventy percent of the available grants will be set aside for this group. The rest will provide assistance to youth enrolled in alternative high schools or secondary programs offering technical education.
Money from the stimulus package will finance a summer youth program for 14- to 24-year-olds – the first time in a decade that money is available for a large scale program providing work experience and work maturity skills to young people without skills to compete in today’s tight job market.
To achieve the goals of the revamped program, the department asked the federal government to waive several regulations including competitive bids for providers of paid and unpaid work experience and support services. The state also asked for a waiver of the ban on using grant money to set up Individual Training Accounts for older youth, which finance job training to help people get jobs more quickly.
The stimulus package also provides an extra $3.6 million for employment services with two-thirds targeted at getting the more than 50,000 active unemployment insurance claimants back to work. The other third will provide additional help for nearly 80,000 other workers seeking better jobs, their first jobs or re-entering the work force. Efforts will focus on expanding business connections and services, providing greater access to services for individual job seekers and intensifying successful job search strategies for groups like professionals, veterans, the disabled, offenders and youth.
The strategic plan for program year 2009, which runs from July through June 2010, can be found online at www.labor.idaho.gov under “What’s News.” Comments can be submitted until the close of business June 22 to Office of Workforce Policy, Idaho Department of Labor, 317 W. Main St., Boise, Idaho 83735 or online at WIAPlan@labor.idaho.gov.