New Jobs Program to Help 200 More in Torrance Area
Nearly 200 laid-off workers in the Torrance area will receive job skills training and help in seeking employment through a $700,000 federal grant, Gov. Pete Wilson announced Wednesday.
The grant, which will be administered by the Carson/Lomita/Torrance Private Industry Council, comes in response to a series of cutbacks and plant closings at local industries, including aerospace, manufacturing, retail and electronics, said Liza Cannon, a spokeswoman for Wilson.
“This just gives the prospective employee the tools to find new employment,” Cannon said. “It’s a boost to get them back into the work force.”
The programs will include job and stress counseling, employment preparation workshops, job placement services, and literacy and English language classes, Cannon said.
The Private Industry Council in Torrance already serves some 500 people who have been laid off, and the new grant will allow the agency to serve 200 more, said Patricia D. Unangst, administrator of the council’s Torrance office.
“It’s not for a specific industry,” Unangst said of the new money. “We wrote the grant because our area is such a diverse industrial base and layoffs are happening across the industries.”
Enrollment for the programs will begin immediately, she said. Those seeking assistance must have received notice that they will be laid off or must have been laid off already, she said.
“Basically, if you’re unemployed come in (today),” she said.
The money comes from the federal Job Training Partnership Act, whose funds are allocated to states for use at their discretion, Cannon said.
Cannon said Wilson authorized the grant this week in response to a request from the Private Industry Council and the local office of the state Employment Development Department.
“There were a significant number of dislocated workers” in the South Bay area, Cannon said.
During the last year, the South Bay region has been hit with a number of plant closings and layoffs, principally in the aerospace and manufacturing industries, which have left more than 50,000 people jobless, Unangst said.
The economic strain continued this week as Harpers, a Torrance furniture manufacturer, announced it would relocate to Idaho in July, 1994. The company’s 500 employees will be offered jobs at the new site under “different benefit levels,” Harpers officials said.
“I was very disappointed with that because they are one of our biggest employers,” said Agnes Dodd, manager of the Torrance office of the Employment Development Department.
She called the $700,000 grant a small step toward lowering the region’s 7% unemployment rate, “which is higher than it’s probably ever been,” Dodd said.
“Two hundred workers may not seem like a lot, but for the 200 who get jobs it will mean a lot to them,” said Dodd, adding that people crowd the office lobby every day looking for work.
