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Florida Region Uses Strategic Doing to Help in Overcoming the Space Challenge as the Space Shuttle Program Comes to an End

About 250 people joined us recently for an interactive ‘strategic doing’ event hosted by Brevard Workforce and the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, (and generously sponsored by FLORIDA TODAY, our local Gannett newspaper) called Overcoming the Space Challenge through Regional Innovation. The group came together to learn more about the challenges we face at the end of NASA’s Shuttle Program, and to actually incorporate our ideas and resources into a strategic plan that would help Brevard and the surrounding region in overcoming these challenges. It was the first such event Brevard has ever experienced. Facilitated by Ed Morrison, strategic advisor to the Purdue Center for Economic Development and Linda Fowler, founder of Regionerate, local, regional and state experts on the leading edge of responsibility in the areas of schools, our economy, the aerospace industry, county services, and help for the workforce started off the event with some insight before attendees broke into groups. Brevard Workforce briefed the audience on our intensive Aerospace Workforce Transition program and the Regional Aerospace Workforce Initiative, efforts that started more than three years ago to serve and assist the talent that will be displaced.

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New York State's Reemployment Services

Karen Coleman, Director of New York's Division of Employment and Workforce Solutions, provides an overview of New York's innovative approach to reemployment services, with particular focus on the use of assessment tools to improve skill matching.

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New York State's Reemployment Services

A presentation by Karen Coleman Director of the Division of Employment and Workforce Solutions, NYS Department of Labor. The presentation lays out the state's innovative approaches to reemployment.

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New York State's Reemployment Services

A presentation by Karen Coleman Director of the Division of Employment and Workforce Solutions, NYS Department of Labor. The presentation lays out the state's innovative approaches to reemployment.

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Quick Reference on Allowable Uses of ARRA RES Funds

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What Is in Your Assessment Toolbox? Making Informed Investments in Your Assessment Suite

The $250 million in Reemployment Services Grants provided through the Recovery Act have generated a host of creative and innovative approaches to helping the unemployed. In particular, we have learned a great deal over the last year about how assessment tools can strengthen reemployment services. Personality assessments, work values assessments, skills transferability assessments/tools, interest assessments, educational assessments, occupational skills assessments, work readiness assessments and the list goes on and on. All of these types of assessments and more increase the workforce system’s ability to match job seekers and employers. If you are still looking for ways to invest your ARRA RES funds, we want to help you learn about which instruments are the most effective by connecting you with your workforce system colleagues who can give you unbiased, first-hand feedback on their experience with specific products. If you are interested in purchasing a particular assessment instrument or tool and would like to see if there is a workforce system colleague that is using the instrument you are interested in, please contact our resident expert on assessment tools: Lauren Fairley-Wright Workforce Analyst USDOL – ETA – Office of Workforce Investment wright.lauren@dol.gov

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The Reemployment Dollar Menu: New York State’s Investment Yields Great Value

Lawrence C. found himself without a job. The collapse of the financial sector (and related industries) had affected him and 868,000 other fellow New Yorkers. New York State’s Workforce Development System was overwhelmed and ARRA funds helped provide additional staffing for New York’s bustling One-Stop Centers. With some One-Stop Centers seeing over 700 customers daily, New York’s Labor Department was concerned about providing quality services to customers like Lawrence C. New York got SMART – literally. With a financial investment of less than the cost of a cheeseburger per customer, New York’s SMART 2010 job lead service was launched. New York State has partnered with Burning Glass Technologies in developing their existing recruiting tool to work for New York State’s unemployed. This technology has been successfully used by the private sector and has now been transformed into a job lead tool for job seeking customers. Minnesota’s experience with this technology, helped New York State plan their SMART 2010 pilot. One Stop staff submit customer resumes to SMART2010 where they are then “matched” with existing job openings in the New York Job Bank. The SMART 2010 system goes beyond traditional job matching technology. SMART doesn’t focus only on keywords; it understands s the knowledge, skills and abilities that people acquire over their entire work history. SMART then rates the selected job leads (using a five star rating system) and emails these leads directly to the customer’s email in-box. Customers can read a brief description of the job lead and click on a hyperlink that provides additional detail on the job opening.

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NASWA WEBINAR ON ARRA REEMPLOYMENT GRANTS

April 30th Webinar: Approaches to Obligating Reemployment Funds by September 30, 2010

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Utah: RES Technology Upgrade Project

Integrating Unemployment Insurance and Employment Services IT systems is an excellent way for states to spend their Recovery Act RES funds. Such integration can enhance the work of both services and yield tremendous benefits through shared access to relevant information about clients. I’m writing today to let you know how we’ve done this system integration in Utah and how we’ve overcome obstacles along the way. Our RES Technology Upgrade Project has been developed over the course of 2009 and 2010, and it has required hard work and critical thinking. The process began in January 2009, when I attended the “Re-Employment Works!” Summit in Baltimore, Maryland. Ideas were discussed there about how to integrate Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Employment Services (ES). The conversations ranged from technical integration to brick and mortar integration. The merits of self-service delivery verses face-to-face service delivery were also actively debated.

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Enterprising States: Creating Jobs, Economic Development and Prosperity in Challenging Times

The National Chamber Foundation has partnered with the American Free Enterprise. Dream Big. campaign to spur the creation of 20 million jobs in the next decade – restoring the 7 million jobs lost to the current recession, and creating the 13 million new jobs that our growing nation will need in the next 10 years. Each individual state will play a pivotal role in achieving this goal by creating the conditions for competition, innovation, and productivity through a focus on education and training, science and technology and infrastructure. Enterprise-friendly policies at the state level can facilitate local job growth by championing entrepreneurship and mobilizing effective partnerships for improving the conditions for business and job growth. Our study connects the success of free enterprise to our nation’s economy by correlating key policy inputs and best practices in state-driven economic development with job creation and other substantive economic outputs. Brief case studies of each state highlight policies and strategies that work. From the interviews we conducted for these case studies, it is clear that the states are making job creation a high priority, and are implementing meaningful changes in their approaches to job creation. While this varies by state, there is a renewed focus on creating more favorable conditions for business growth.

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Making the Most of Our Reemployment Services Grants

When Congress included $250 million for Reemployment Services (RES) in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA), we knew it was a great opportunity to reinvigorate one of the public workforce system’s most vital functions. Since February 2009, states have made a variety of innovative investments to meet the urgent challenge of reemploying millions of Americans – from mobile RES units, to new skill assessment tools, to integrated information management systems that support the seamless delivery of reemployment services to all job seekers. Through our travels to regional conferences and our conversations with you, we have learned of the steady progress toward our goal of system integration and transformation.

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Announcing the 2010 Heartland Conference - take part in the discussion!

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA) Region 5, in conjunction with the Great Lakes Employment and Training Association (GLETA), is hosting the Heartland Conference to be held April 7-9, 2010 in Chicago, IL at the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel. Don't miss the opportunity to connect with Heartland 2010 presenters and participants. We will be posting many of our upcoming Conference sessions. Share your ideas and best practices, post your comments and help build an interactive learning community. STAY TUNED, TAKE PART IN THE DISCUSSION & REGISTER TODAY!

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The U.S. Department of Labor Announces the Results of its “Tools for America's Job Seekers Challenge”

Finding a job in today's economy is hard work, and job seekers need to have the best tools at their fingertips. To help uncover new and effective on-line job search and career advancement tools, DOL challenged entrepreneurs and organizations to showcase their online solutions, and invited workforce system decision-makers and job seekers to explore, comment on, and recommend tools.

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Social Media and Reemployment

With U.S. unemployment hovering near 10%, jobseekers are increasingly turning to their social networks for job leads, employer information, and moral support. A brief scan of the blogosphere results in wealth of advice for the unemployed, with topics ranging from a grounding in social media etiquette to the tangible steps jobseekers can take to create a strong brand using web 2.0 technologies. In his Personal Branding blog for Business Week, Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, argues that LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and blogging are much better tools for finding jobs that speak to a jobseeker's unique passions and interests as compared to the traditional job board. Skip Job Boards and Use Social Media Instead by Dan Schawbel http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jul2009/ca20090728_587107.htm