Grant to Help Laid-Off Defense Workers : Aerospace: About $500,000 to $700,000 of an $18-million federal fund will be used in Ventura County to retrain and educate 100 residents.

Nearly 5,000 Southern California aerospace workers who have lost their jobs to defense cutbacks will receive retraining and education, under an $18-million grant announced by the White House.

Between $500,000 and $700,000 of the money will be used in Ventura County to assist at least 100 unemployed aerospace workers, said Francisco De Leon of the Job Training Policy Council of Ventura County.

“It’s a big financial help,” said De Leon, executive director of the federally funded, nonprofit agency. He said the grant demonstrated that “there’s some hope there for those individuals (who) have a lot of problems adjusting to the fact that they are not employed.”

De Leon said that in the past, there has not been enough money to provide job training to all the Ventura County residents laid off from companies such as Northrop Corp. and Raytheon Co.

The grant, the first to be awarded under a Labor Department program, will provide vouchers to aerospace workers in six counties in the Los Angeles region. The vouchers can be used for a range of services, including classroom study, on-the-job training, child care, transportation assistance, language courses and counseling.

The grant was announced by Labor Secretary Robert Reich and several California members of Congress whose districts have been hit hard by the post-Cold War restructuring of the defense industry.

“We’ve had a lot of problems,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), “but we’ve not had a lot of help that we could point to and say, ‘This is going to make a difference.’ This (program) is real help.”

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who represents parts of eastern Ventura County, said he appreciates the assistance.

“I recognize that morale is low for many of the affected workers in our area, and that downsizing has created tremendous hardship for those already laid off,” Beilenson said in a written statement.

The grant will be administered by the South Bay Private Industry Council in Inglewood, and the money will be divided among 14 service regions in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Reich said the program was aimed at training workers in occupational skills where shortages already exist, including health care, computers, telecommunications and graphic design.

“These jobs are already there,” Reich said.

The Clinton Administration--intent on appearing sympathetic to the plight of the country’s most populous state--is no doubt hoping to reap political benefit from the grant, the largest Reich will award under the program. But Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the state is only getting what it deserves. “We’re not abandoning those who won the Cold War,” she said.

De Leon said aerospace workers who have lost their jobs can call the Job Training Policy Council in Oxnard at (805) 981-9781 to find out if they qualify for assistance.

Correspondent Ira E. Stoll in Thousand Oaks contributed to this story.