Need job? Thinking 'green' might help

Posted by gschroder August 07, 2008 07:44AM

DETROIT -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm's No Worker Left Behind program is expanding training offerings, even though the year-old initiative has struggled to pay tuition costs for tens of thousands of displaced workers seeking educational assistance.

Granholm said recently No Worker Left Behind, which provides as much as $10,000 in training funds for laid-off or low-income workers, will add a "green jobs initiative" to train workers in alternative-energy industries.

"Michigan's strong manufacturing history and geography make us a natural fit for the thousands of alternative energy jobs being created each year," Granholm said at a news conference.

The state is allocating $6 million to the green jobs effort.

No Worker Left Behind began in August 2007 and has served 31,000 workers who either lost their jobs or had family income of less than $40,000 a year. Granholm's goal is to retrain 100,000 workers by 2010.

Those involved in aiding unemployed and low-income workers say it's one of the best programs they've seen to help Michigan residents raise their standard of living.

"I think this represents a real effort to reach out to low-wage workers and people who need training," said Sharon Parks, president of the Michigan League for Human Services in Lansing.

But even Granholm administration officials admit the program lacks enough funding to retrain the hundreds of thousands of Michigan workers who are being displaced in an economy shifting from low-skilled manufacturing production work to service-sector jobs requiring at least a couple of years of college.

While about 11,000 people have completed training for new jobs, an additional are on waiting lists because of funding shortages.

"The need is as big as the economic crisis in Michigan," said Andy Levin, deputy director of the Department of Labor and Economic Growth.

Michigan had 428,000 unemployed workers in June and an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, the highest in the nation.

Workers can sign up for No Worker Left Behind training at local Michigan Works! offices. They must pursue education for jobs that are considered to be in high demand by the local Michigan Works office.

No Worker Left Behind will pay up to $5,000 a year in tuition for up to two years at community colleges, universities and private-sector training schools.

The state Legislature didn't fund the program in its first year of operation because of a severe budget crisis. No Worker Left Behind relied on about $99 million in federal job-training funds.

Granholm sought $40 million in state funds for the second year of the initiative, but the Legislature approved just $15 million.

Levin said the state will continue working aggressively to find money from a variety of federal sources to pay for job training. It expects to spend $125 million in federal dollars on the program between now and August 2009.

"We're cobbling together as many federal dollars as we can," Levin said.

Local job training officials say they will be able to spend every penny of it.

"There are many more people seeking assistance in this downturn than in the 35 years I've been doing this," said Doug Stites, director of the Capital Area Michigan Works office in Lansing.

Stites, who headed state job training programs under former Gov. John Engler, said Michigan faces a massive task of retraining its Industrial Age workers for jobs in health care, information technology and other so-called knowledge industries.

"The new work force is still the old work force," he said. "We have to figure out how to retool them."

No Worker Left Behind could be a boon in providing workers to Michigan's fast-growing film industry, one filmmaker said.

Grand Rapids Community College, in conjunction with Tictock Studios in Holland and the Ottawa County Michigan Works office, is offering several film classes that prepare displaced workers for mostly entry-level jobs, such as production assistants.

Those jobs pay up to about $40,000 but offer lucrative advancement opportunities, said Hopwood DePree, Tictock's chief executive officer.

"This creates a new opportunity so that workers can stay in their home state and get involved in the film industry," he said.