Friday, October 12, 2012

On the Job Training Programs in Ohio and Elsewhere

A bunch of us from the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library did a tour through The Source, a one-stop employment center, one of hundreds throughout the country, to see what they had to offer local job seekers, and programs available to them.  I'll cover some of the other programs in future dispatches, but the one that we'll talk about here is OJT, the On the Job Training Program that's funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and is available in Ohio and other areas of the country.

The program is aimed to help the long-termed unemployed (to be eligible, you must have been unemployed more that 158 days or 22 1/2 weeks, consecutively or not.  Are you a displaced worker, a displaced homemaker, and eligible, receiving or have exhausted your unemployment benefits?  You may be eligible.  In the program, a participating employer is reimbursed by the government for the cost of training these workers in the skills they need; the employer has an employee trained for nearly free, and the worker has a new job.  If you live in northwest Ohio and think you may be eligible and interested, call Dan at 419 213 5627.  Be sure to ask about documentation that you need, like a termination or layoff notice, or a tax form if you were formerly self-employed. 

Since the funding is federal, there are other places that have this program, too, but you will have to contact your own local one-stop employment center to see if it's available where you live.  "Available" depends on a lot of things: do you fit the criteria?  Did your state apply for the money from the Department of Labor?  If so, did they run through all the money, or is it still available?  Did some employers sign on for it?  Remember that being eligible for a jobs program is like riding a wave on a surfboard:  you have to be there and working actively with the job centers when the funding arrives, and definitely before it runs out.  And you never know when the wave will show up.  But if you're there, you may be eligible--and ready.

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