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E-WIN Access Points in Mississippi

By Marcus Estes, Barbara Hicks and Misty Vowell, Mississippi Department of Employment Security The Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) is a federally funded state agency that provides an array of services through WIN Job Centers located throughout the state. The WIN Job Centers offer convenient, one stop employment and training services to employers and job seekers. WIN Job Centers also pay unemployment insurance to workers who lost their jobs. The Labor Market Information Department gathers and disseminates labor force data used by private industry and public agencies for planning and resource allocation.

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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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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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UI Modernization: Myths and Facts

Our colleagues at the US Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration (ETA) prepared a helpful summary of the issues pertaining to state take-up of $7 billion in Unemployment Compensation modernization funds available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. With a set of relatively simple and progressive reforms, states can qualify for funds, which will in some instances pay for years' worth of benefits. Even so, some states have yet to implement the changes to bring their unemployment insurance systems in line with the needs of the contemporary workforce. This primer should help all those who are considering making the changes and qualifying for the money. Should your state be interested in finding out whether proposed legislative or regulatory changes will make it qualify for the payments, Office of Unemployment Insurance in ETA is ready to help. Visit this resource page.

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GAO Study: Unemployment Insurance: Better Data Needed to Assess Reemployment Services to Claimants

2005 Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives

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Highlights of Reemployment Technical Assistance Efforts

Want answers and ideas as to what communities across the country have done, and plan to do, to better understand the unemployed segment of their talent pool and connect them to jobs? Then, we've got a story along with PowerPoint to tell and show you! ...About a year and half ago, DOL began to brainstorm some technical assistance efforts to reconnect Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants to reemployment opportunities. One question that came up was how are regions tapping the unemployed worker segment of their talent pool? This generated more questions like -- are they being connected to growth occupations? Are regions doing skills based matching and analysis? What jobs are growing and how do we connect the unemployed to these opportunities on the other side of the economic downturn? We thought regions would know the demand occupations and would have done the homework to understand the skill-sets of other segments of the talent pool -- possibly incumbent workers and youth. Still we were uncertain...what about the unemployed workers? Had regions mapped out the skills of the unemployed workers? Had the regions analyzed how these skills transferred to current employment opportunities in the region? Had the regions identified skill gaps with businesses experiencing labor shortages...or were poised to experience a labor shortage on the other side of the economic downturn? The result of a study conducted as part of the Reemployment technical assistance effort has been added to the Reemployment Community of Practice. We encourage you to check out this Webinar recording and PowerPoint and look forward to feedback.

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Strengthening the System for ReEmployment: What are you doing?

It was great to hear people talking about the why, how, what, who of strengthening systems for reemployment at the San Francisco Forum today. Nevada (represented by the awesome Kim Morigeau who also told tales of reemployment strategies at the Dallas Forum) and Oregon (represented by effectiveness & efficiency, employment & workforce development gurus Bill Fink and Krissa Caldwell ) kicked off the 90 minute discussion. While Oregon and Nevada have similar goals, their state and local system structures in their states are different, and each has designed different strategies to get where they want to go. Attendees were energized by the differences and the similarities! Bill and Krissa articulated the big picture goals they work toward: Goal 1: Ensure ALL employers have a skilled workforce for competitive success in the global market. Goal 2: Prepare an agile, innovative workforce with the skills to succeed in the knowledge-based economy. Goal 3: Build a flexible, unified workforce education and training system that consistently meets or exceeds the needs of workers and businesses. and Kim described the tangible outcomes Nevada seeks from a strengthened system for reemployment: Trust Fund Savings – direct cost savings to employers Entered Employments – returns skilled workers to employment Do you have explicit big picture and operational goals? How are you getting better results for your claimants, and for your system?