How Workforce Investment Board helps (Nov. 5)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
Those of us who heard Elaine Craig’s presentation before the Madera County Board of Supervisors Tuesday learned first hand that many more Maderans have been suffering from the recession than many of us realized.
Craig, executive director of the Madera County Workforce Investment Board, said her agency had provided help to Madera County residents about 35,000 times in the last six months.
A lot of that help was with unemployment claims through the state Economic Development Department, which reflects the depth of joblessness here. The EDD shares the building at the corner of 7th and D streets with the workforce investment board.
In Madera County, the labor force at the end of September was approximately 70,400, while the number of unemployed was about 8,700. Dealing with all those job-seekers and benefit claimants made up a lot of the contacts Craig and her staff completed.
Craig’s agency also tries to get jobs for people, or help them find better ones.
The agency provided paid work-training experience for 307 young people through partnerships with other agencies, such as the Madera Redevelopment Agency, with Madera Community Hospital, with private businesses.
The investment board operates the City of Madera Leadership Academy, in which workers learn leadership skills; sponsors classes in English as a second language, and helps paroled and released ex-offenders train for work and then finds them jobs.
The investment board benefitted from federal job stimulus funds of more than $2 million, she said.
If you find yourself out of a job, it would seem the first place to go is to the Madera County Workforce Investment Board, where much help is available.
