Jobs bill gives power to locals
The jobs training bill that Congress finally passed in August could affect cities and counties trying to move people off welfare while simultaneously fueling the fires of local economic development. The Workforce Investment Act is hardly radical, but it does make some significant changes in the way Department of Labor job training programs are delivered. (The programs themselves remain mostly unchanged.)
The big question is whether companies that have rejected DOL-trained job applicants in the past will take a new look. “We are optimistic this is a step in the right direction,” says Tom Lindsley, vice president of policy and government relations for the Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance of Businesses, a group of Fortune 500 companies.
The focal point of the new law is its authorization for “One Stop” centers in every county and city with a population above 200,000. Over the past few years, the Labor Department has been giving grants to states to set up a limited number of One Stop employment centers. The centers are supposed to handle everything from job counseling and training to placement and location of day care. However, they operated with no federal guidelines for the services they had to provide and with no mandatory performance standards.
Companies willing to hire workers through DOL programs typically had to go to city or county agencies for subsidiary matters such as food stamp vouchers, housing, insurance and day care. Even then, many of the new employees were unacceptable to prospective employers.
Testifying before Congress last year, Daniel Berry, vice president for workforce preparation at the Cleveland Growth Association, the nation’s largest Chamber of Commerce, listed the problems. “Many of our employers have found that the agencies are not able to refer them candidates who meet the skill requirements they have,” he said. “[They have found] that, when they ask for referrals, [they are not given on a] timely basis, and, when graduates of training programs enter our workforce, there is often a painful discovery that the folks have not acquired the [necessary] skills.”
The Workforce Investment Act represents an attempt to fix those problems. Although One Stop centers have to give priority to economically disadvantaged adults, any adult, regardless of socioeconomic status, is eligible for their services. That was not true in the past.
Moreover, responsibility for the centers shifts from the states to the local governments. Each will be run by a Workforce Investment Board, members of which are appointed by local elected officials. Local companies will have the majority of seats, but the mayor or county commission will set policy direction. “For the first time, local elected officials will act in a policy- making role,” says Neil Bromberg, associate legislative director for the National Association of Counties in Washington, D.C.
Cities, counties and potential employers no longer will have to sort out separate requirements for training grant programs, since there will be only three streams of training funds: adults, youth and dislocated workers. That offers local governments considerable flexibility in managing the programs.
In the past, city employment agencies worried about meeting “job surge” needs, says Susan Rosenblum, newly hired program director for the National League of Cities’ Workforce Development for Poverty Reduction. The new law, she says, forces localities to take a longer view and a more systematic approach to job training, ensuring that new jobs are connected with people who need them.