DIRECTOR’S CORNER
Hello everyone, and happy Labor Day! We
hope this newsletter finds everyone doing well as schools reconvene for our
customers.
We have a noteworthy change coming up
within our team. We are simultaneously excited for and saddened by a change on
the grants team: effective Wednesday, September 7th, Francisca Abbey
will be working with DEED’s Business and Community Development Division on the
Angel Tax Credit Program. This promotional opportunity is a wonderful one for
Francisca, but we are really going to miss her a great deal. As you know,
Francisca has been our key lead on National Dislocated Worker Grants; we’ll be
working to find a new lead for this work. Monica Weber remains our strong
grants and policy specialist – I thank Monica for sticking with us through this
transition!
On another note, we can remove the term
“interim” from my title, as I was offered and accepted the permanent director
position for the Dislocated Worker and Trade Adjustment Assistance programs.
Many of you know this already, but I think it will help just to make an
announcement (as awkward as it is coming from me. 😊)
Again, I’d like to thank Liz McLoone for
pulling this newsletter together. If you have any suggestions for future articles,
please let us know!
Thank you all for all that you do,
-Annie
LABOR
DAY 2016
By: Liz McLoone, Labor Liaison, Dislocated Worker Program
The United States first officially recognized Labor Day in
1894 as a time to reflect on the incredible achievements of America’s working
families. However, the tradition of celebrating workers in September goes
back even further.
The first Labor Day event was held in New York City on
Tuesday, September 5, 1882. Records indicate that 20,000 working people from
the area participated in the parade and picnic. Several unions worked together
to create the Central Labor Union that was in charge of organizing the
event. The event’s purpose was to bring public awareness to the unions’
fight to create an eight-hour work day, abolish child labor, establish equal
pay for equal work, and many other policies. Historians say 250,000 New
Yorkers watched this first ever Labor Day parade with marchers holding signs
reading “Labor Creates All Wealth” and “Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for
Rest, Eight Hours for Recreation.”
Several years later, the Federation of Organized Trades and
Labor Unions, the AFL’s forbearer, called for workers across the country to
celebrate Labor Day. As a result, by 1885 many industrial centers
throughout the country celebrated, including Minnesota’s first Labor Day
celebration at Cottage Park in White Bear Lake in 1885. The St. Paul Trades
& Labor Assembly, which included boot and shoe workers, carpenters, cigar
makers, printers, plasterers, railroad machinists, streetcar employees, and
many other labor unions, sponsored the event.
The number of Labor Day events has grown in numbers
throughout the years. However, the holiday’s original intent of bringing
awareness to the struggles of working people has gotten a bit lost among the
general public.
The Labor Day tradition remains strong within union
communities. Minnesotans carry on the tradition with the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s
strong presence for all twelve days of the Minnesota State Fair along with a
Labor Day parade, Labor Day picnics for union members and their families, and
guest editorials in local newspapers.
Honoring the working people that make
our country strong is a long-standing tradition. As we get ready to celebrate
Labor Day, let us remember the struggles of the past and be grateful for our
present.
GRANTS
UPDATE
Dislocated Worker Large Layoff Grants
We awarded one new grant in the month of
August to serve dislocated workers affected by a large layoff in the state:
Merrill Corporation
Service Provider: Career Management
Services
Award: $337,500 to serve 75 participants
Term: July 15, 2016 to June 30, 2017
Converting Layoffs Into Minnesota
Businesses (CLIMB)
The grants team has gotten questions
regarding the CLIMB activities associated with the Dislocated worker Program.
CLIMB (Converting Layoffs into
Minnesota Businesses) is a subset of the Dislocated Worker (DW) program. It is
not its own program and does not have its own funding, therefore does not
require any referral forms. As long as the participant is in the DW program,
they are eligible for CLIMB just as they would be with other services. Of
course since this is for entrepreneurs, they must have a viable business
idea/plan. In order to be considered to be in CLIMB, the participant must be in
state DW; per state statute, CLIMB training and consulting services may
only be paid for with state funds. The participant must also apply for
and be eligible for Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits. Once those two
criteria have been met, the participant may be eligible to be entered into
CLIMB, depending on their needs to start or grow a viable business idea as
concluded by the DW counselor and the participant.
CLIMB consists of two activities in
WF1 as mentioned before. They are CLIMB Consulting and CLIMB Training. CLIMB
Consulting is used when the individual wants to seek out consulting services
from organizations such as: Women Venture, SCORE, an SBDC etc. in order to help
them develop their business plan, market, find funding sources for their
business capital etc. CLIMB Consulting may also be used when the individual does
not require those services but needs to remain in CLIMB in order to receive
the benefits available to them in UI—discussed in detail below. You may find a
list of organizations that participants may go to for consulting services at
DEED’s DW homepage.
This list is not all inclusive so participants may certainly go to other organizations
not listed. CLIMB Training is similar to other DW training except it would
cater to the individual’s specific business training needs.
The DW Counselor will consult with
the participant about how viable their entrepreneurial career path is and the
needs they have to make that a reality. If both the counselor and participant
agree that this is the route to continue into, the counselor will enter one or
both of the two CLIMB activities into WF1. Monica Weber (my colleague who works
with CLIMB), will run a WF1 report that she sends to UI. UI will then contact
the participant to tell them about how to submit their paper weekly request forms to receive their
benefits (as opposed to requests done online for non-CLIMB DW participants). If
the participant is receiving severance, UI will not contact them until
the severance has been exhausted. The participant may still remain in CLIMB,
however they will not get the UI benefits listed below as it would not pertain
to the participant at that time. Because the WF1 activity must be opened to
trigger the transfer of information to UI, it is critical that the data entry is executed as soon as the participant
and the counselor agree to begin the activity.
UI Benefits:
While an entrepreneur is in CLIMB and
receiving UI benefits, there are three criteria that are waived:
- The requirement to search
for work is waived. This allows the entrepreneur to spend ample time on their
business.
- The cap on the number of
hours the entrepreneur has to work per week is waived. Many entrepreneurs spend
more than the average work week on their business. So this will not affect
their benefits.
- Any income that is earned
from their business does not impact their weekly benefits. They may retain
money earned from the business as well as their weekly benefits.
For CLIMB questions, please contact
Monica Weber at Monica.Weber@state.mn.us or at 651-259-7560. DEED will be issuing a
formal policy on CLIMB in the new calendar year.
National Dislocated Worker Grant
Updates
Sector Partnership NEG Reminder:
Please remember that there are funds
available via the SP NEG to serve dislocated workers; specifically those who
would benefit from work-based training such as OJTs, apprenticeships, incumbent
worker training, and transitional jobs.
PERFORMANCE/POLICY UPDATE
Training Consent for Release and
Exchange of Information form
On July 1, 2015, the
Credential Training Consent for Release and Exchange of Information policy was
put into effect requiring a signed Consent for Release/Exchange of Information
form in all credential training participant case files. This form will allow
Dislocated Worker Counselors to receive a copy of the training completion
results and/or transcripts from the participant’s training institution.
State Monitors have
reported back from the field that some training institutions are not accepting
this form as approval to release the requested completion results. We at DEED
want to solve this issue but without timely information as these issues arise,
we are unable to investigate the problem.
If you are currently
receiving pushback from an institution or have trouble receiving the required
documentation in the future, please contact Amy Carlson immediately. Email her
a copy of the consent form, training institution name, training program title,
type of credential training, contact information for the person you sent the
form to and requested information from at the institution, and the WF1 ID for
the participant. Once this information is received she will investigate why the
consent form is not being honored.
CORNER ON THE MARKET:
CONTRIBUTION
FROM CAMERON MACHT
Diversity in Greater Minnesota
Though
still less diverse than the Twin Cities, Greater Minnesota is seeing greater
diversity in its workforce. In fact, the number of jobs filled by minority
workers increased faster in the 80 counties of Greater Minnesota than the
seven-county Twin Cities metro area over the past 20 years.
The
Twin Cities is home to just over 60 percent of the state’s jobs and more than
75 percent of the jobs held by minority workers. There are pockets of
diversity, however, in Greater Minnesota.
Mahnomen
County in northwestern Minnesota has the highest percentage of jobs filled by
minorities, followed by Nobles and Watonwan counties in the southwest, and Cass
County in the northwest.
Hennepin
and Ramsey County have 237,599 of the 386,437 jobs held by minority workers in
the state. Hennepin has 173,094 of those jobs and Ramsey County has
64,505 of those jobs. Together, that is 61.5% of the state's jobs held by
minority workers.
Data
clearly show that minority workers continue to make up an expanding piece of
the employment puzzle in Greater Minnesota. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators program (QWI), the number of jobs held
by minority workers in Greater Minnesota more than doubled over the past two
decades, rising from about 35,000 jobs in 1995 to just over 88,000 jobs in
2014, a 149 percent increase.
In
sum, 8.3 percent of the jobs in Greater Minnesota are now filled by people who
identify their race as something other than white alone or white with a
Hispanic or Latin origin. By comparison, 18 percent of the jobs in the Twin
Cities and 14.2 percent of the jobs statewide fall into that category. Every
region in the state saw an increase in the number of jobs held by minorities
over the past 20 years, with Greater Minnesota seeing a faster increase than
the Twin Cities. Outside the Twin Cities, the most diverse workforces are found
in the southeast and southwest, while the northeast has the least diverse
workforce overall.
For
more information, read the article on Diversity in
Greater Minnesota from our award-winning quarterly Minnesota
Economic Trends publication.
 SUCCESS STORY
Brooke, Rural MN CEP-Detroit Lakes
When
I came to Rural Minnesota CEP, Inc. (RMCEP) I was looking for the right
job. My previous employment was in
production but I have 5 years experience in office related positions. I knew
what I wanted and just needed a little help.
I knew my capabilities and was not just going to settle for any
job. The staff at RMCEP enrolled me into
the WIOA Adult program and helped me become career ready, create a good resume,
obtain a Gold level National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC), and assisted
me with some specific Microsoft Office 2013 training and as well as work
training experiences. The staff at RMCEP
were absolutely amazing. Nicole could
not have been more supportive to me. She
understood me and what I was looking for and needed. I am currently working at Nereson’s Chevrolet
as an administrative assistant and absolutely love what I am doing. I would highly recommend the MN Workforce
Center and RMCEP. They will not let you
down; they will help you in every way.
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