Career Start : Second Chance at Employment : Training: The chronically unemployed and those who want to escape welfare are among those who benefit from federal jobs program. Now the victims of the recession are in line as well.

When Vladimir Shtipelman arrived in California from Moscow in April, 1991, he fully expected life to be a challenge.

But he had no idea to what extent.

A successful design engineer in Russia, the 56-year-old Muscovite found that his skills were woefully antiquated. That frustrating fact, as well as his limited ability to communicate in English and the lingering U.S. recession kept him out of the job market for more than a year.

“Now is a very hard time for everyone,” said Shtipelman, speaking from his apartment in Laguna Niguel. His English is still painstakingly slow and methodical. Although he came to the United States to improve his economic lot, he has found that even in here, “it is very difficult to find a job.”

Then he discovered Jobs Plus, the Orange County agency that administers the federally funded Job Training Partnership Act, established a decade ago.

Today, after completing a two-month computer drafting course at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Shtipelman said that he is working full time for Thomas Brothers Maps, using knowledge he learned in the Auto Computer Assisted Drafting course paid for by Jobs Plus.

“Jobs Plus helped me really a lot,” Shtipelman said.

As the Job Training Partnership Act celebrates its 10th anniversary, officials at the 16 offices in Southern California say business is booming.

“Unemployment has increased dramatically,” said Jose Martinez, executive director of the Job Training Partnership Act’s Los Angeles office. “People are closing doors all over.”

With more people out of work than ever, training program officials say that the retraining is more important than ever to get the unemployed back to work at offices and assembly lines.

Once geared mostly to the long-term unemployed and welfare recipients hoping to get off public assistance, the local Job Training Partnership office reports that it is now inundated with new victims of the recession: the first-time unemployed, who find that their job skills are no longer an asset in a shrinking and consolidating economy.

“There is always that problem,” said Job Training Partnership spokeswoman Anita Del Rio of the Santa Ana office. “But now it is much more intensified.”

Further complicating the search for a job, officials of the program say that the recession has created an employers’ market. For instance, Los Angeles County reports 518,000 people were unemployed as of July, while Orange County reports 83,900 people without jobs.

At the same time, many businesses have either closed or reduced their payrolls, leaving thousands of jobless in the lurch.

There are so many people out of work in all fields that employers can lower wages and still be inundated with job applicants. Jobs that once paid $8 to $10 per hour, for instance, are now filled by employees earning an average of $5 to $6 per hour, she said.

“These are people who are taking second mortgages on their homes,” said counselor Carolyn Johnson, adding that she counsels as many as 10 new applicants a day, almost twice the daily number as two years ago. “They have no money. Most of them don’t really know how bad the job market is out there.”

Counselors at Jobs Plus quickly fill them in on the harsh reality.

“They become really frustrated, fast,” Job Training Partnership counselor Ralph Ramirez added. “They said, ‘I’ve been working for 25 years. Where’s my help?’ ”

The training program tries to give it to them, with an approximately 60% success rate.

Counselors such as Johnson and Ramirez, who work with various private industry councils, show clients how job retraining can help recently unemployed workers get back into the work force with as little financial and emotional pain as possible.

Private industry councils consist of board members from industry, education, unions, the state Employment Development Department and local social service agencies.

Each local council oversees how the federal money is spent within its jurisdiction, determines what job training programs are available and helps recruit businesses to provide jobs for graduates.

Businesses benefit from the Job Training Partnership program, because the agency screens applicants--thus reducing the time-consuming hiring process--and often pays half an employee’s salary during a period of on-the-job training.

To pay for the various training and placement programs, the Job Training Partnership program spends $1.5 billion nationally. The budget in Los Angeles alone, home to eight training offices, is about $30 million, while the three Orange County Jobs Plus offices have a yearly operating budget of $5.5 million.

Arthur Hirshberg, an executive for a transportation company and chairman of the Los Angeles Private Industry Council, said the federal program has long provided retraining for laid-off workers.

But the agency has intensified that effort recently, especially in the beleaguered defense and aerospace industries. He said that under the Job Training Partnership program, for instance, a group of aerospace engineers are now being retrained at a Los Angeles trade school to be environmental engineers.

Still, he said, it’s not easy to place displaced workers.

“It’s pretty difficult,” he said. “There just aren’t the jobs out there.”

Those who are qualified for the Job Training Partnership program can take free courses in such diverse fields as computer-assisted drafting, electronic assembly, data entry and processing, appliance repair, automotive mechanics, bookkeeping and accounting, and retail pharmaceuticals.

The federal program also works with those who are weary of the cycle of poverty and want to escape it through the various training programs offered by the Job Training Partnership Act.

Those candidates include welfare recipients and the chronically unemployed who, for whatever reasons, have bounced from one low-wage job to another.

Marcella Lopez, 27, a pharmacist technician at South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach, is one of the Job Training Partnership program’s most recent success stories.

Lopez, of Laguna Hills, became a single mother at 17. She quit high school when her son was born and went on welfare, an option she has long regretted.

She landed part-time work several years ago as a hospice-care worker for an in-home health care agency, caring for the elderly. That experience inspired her to consider the medical field.

After living with her mother and struggling with her future, Lopez decided 10 months ago to visit the Jobs Plus office in Santa Ana. Weeks later, she was enrolled at Healthstaff Training Institute in Santa Ana, learning her new career choice.

“The hospital hired me right after I finished,” Lopez said. She is now a part-time employee, but hopes to get on the full-time schedule in the near future. When she does, she plans to leave welfare for good.

“That is what I always wanted to do,” Lopez said.