Creating Opportunity for Transitioning Workforce
Can Be an Opportunity for Regional Businesses
Fifteen million dollars is a lot of money. It’s $5,000 for every satellite operating in Earth’s orbit, or more than $25 for each Brevard County resident, or about a dollar for every car that will be sold in China this year. More importantly, it’s $15 million in Brevard county that will be shouldering the economic brunt of changes to NASA’s space program, and of which about 63 percent will go toward enabling regional businesses to step up their hiring over the next 24 months.
The United States Department of Labor (USDOL) National Emergency Grant that Brevard Workforce secured in June is the culmination of several years of planning, implementation and research into programs and activities focused on helping the impacted aerospace workforce and the surrounding business community through the emerging challenges of transition into a new economy. This grant, unlike many other programs developed early on, targets On-the-Job Training (OJT) opportunities, which subsidizes salaries for new hires of directly and indirectly impacted workers laid-off as a result of the changes occurring in NASA’s space program. These funds are available to businesses throughout the region and state.
A Change in Strategy
Brevard has had OJT programs in place for our entire unemployed workforce for some time, but the bulk of funding and activities to this point was for transitioning aerospace workers. By design, it focused on direct services to affected workers by providing onsite counseling, training funds and other assistance to the thousands registered at LaunchNewCareers.com, a website set up specifically for Brevard’s impacted workforce. A portion of the new grant is also helping to keep up with the increase in the need for these types of services and training with the additional staff and resources that greater numbers of laid-off workers require, with the bulk going to the OJT strategy focused on creating employment opportunities.
OJT is as much a program for our unemployed as it is for existing businesses across the region who will hire them. It’s also a boon for economic development organizations across the state seeking to bring more jobs to Florida in a global, highly competitive environment. This amazing business incentive pays a portion of the salary of a new hire from the pool of impacted workers for up to three months in an effort to encourage local hiring sooner rather than later. Eligible, potential employees can come from the transitioning aerospace workforce at Kennedy Space Center and from non-aerospace industries outside the gates, including retail, medical, services and supplier industries that are being dealt an indirect economic blow.
Substantial Incentives
The workforce program underwrites up to half of a new-hire’s salary for up to three months, providing major cost savings for businesses, organizations, and even governments who would like to hire from Brevard’s pool of talent in the next 24 months. An estimated $9,600, per employee over three months is available for approximately 1,000 affected workers. If an organization would like to hire one or many people, but does not have the resources immediately, this program can help bridge the gap and save overall salary costs by hiring right away.
Any employer across the region and state can potentially take advantage of the OJT incentive/training funds to hire people from Brevard County who have been or will be laid off, whether they are aerospace workers or those in the community who have lost their jobs as an indirect result of the aerospace layoffs. Eligible, potential job seekers need to be registered at EmployFlorida.com. Employers can arrange for the incentive through Brevard Workforce, and should visit www.launchnewcareers.com to complete a form expressing their interest in applying for the program. Criteria is being established for businesses to access the funding based on wage level, number of jobs created and the demand industry in which they are created.
Funds will remain available until depleted which is expected to be through the year 2011 for those seeking to hire from Brevard’s affected labor pool. Brevard Workforce plans to use every funding dollar from the National Emergency Grant to benefit the local workforce, regional businesses and our state’s economy. We encourage you to participate, and to pass along the information to other organizations.
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