Last year Providence Business News documented the shortfall in state adult job-training programs against the need – for example, in fiscal 2014, while the state averaged 47,468 unemployed people in the labor force, 1,045 received career services (including resume writing assistance) and 862 became employed as a result of a R.I. Department of Labor and Training program.
In a similar vein, summer youth-employment programs find themselves long on applicants and short on participants.
In 2015 2,371 youths applied for the Governor's Workforce Board's summer jobs program. Yet just 781 were employed through the program. One workforce-board official said that the waiting list was a testament to the program's success. That doesn't make sense. The issue here is that many of the state's young people, especially those for whom extended higher education is not in the cards, need help identifying careers that are appropriate for them. Careers, for instance, in advanced manufacturing. And summer employment is a perfect way to provide an introduction.
But shortsighted funding decisions by the state are keeping that from happening. The investment the state needs to make to improve this situation is not large. One program, the Workforce Partnership of Greater Rhode Island, has received $1.5 million in state funding since 2007. An increase to match inflation since then would put funding at $1.75 million. That quarter of a million dollars would go a long way in Rhode Island, helping companies find their future workers and helping those workers see a future in the Ocean State. •