Almost 200 Home members signed onto a bipartisan letter this week to specific assist for Job Corps after the Labor Division (DOL) lately introduced it might quickly be pausing operations at facilities nationwide.
Within the letter to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the lawmakers categorical assist “for the continuation of the Job Corps program,” whereas noting it stays funded by means of authorities funding laws that handed earlier this 12 months.
“Nearly 20,000 young people utilize Job Corps to learn skills for in-demand vocational and technical job training,” the letter mentioned. “Job Corps is one of the few national programs that specifically targets the 16-24-year-old population that is neither working, nor in school, and provides them with a direct pathway into employment openings in industries such as manufacturing and shipbuilding.”
Job Corps, established as a part of the Financial Alternative Act of 1964, is a free residential training and job coaching program for low-income individuals between 16 and 24 years of age.
In an announcement explaining the DOL’s determination to droop operations at Job Corps facilities, Chavez-DeRemer mentioned this system was discovered to now not obtain “the intended outcomes that students deserve,” citing what she described as “a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis.”
“We remain committed to ensuring all participants are supported through this transition and connected with the resources they need to succeed as we evaluate the program’s possibilities.”
The division mentioned it’ll start a “phased pause” initiating “an orderly transition for students, staff, and local communities.” The pause will happen by June 30, the workplace mentioned.
The transfer was met with swift backlash from lawmakers, together with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who defended this system in a press release expressing robust opposition to the DOL’s transfer to pause operations.
“Serving nearly 500 students in Maine, the Loring Job Corps Center and the Penobscot Job Corps Center have become important pillars of support for some of our most disadvantaged young adults,” Collins mentioned on the time.
Within the new letter despatched to the secretary Thursday, the group of lawmakers mentioned that, by “filling job openings, Job Corps ensures that young people become productive members of the American workforce.”
“No other program takes homeless youth and turns them into the welders, electricians, shipbuilders, carpenters, nurses, mechanics, and vocational workers of the future.”
The Hill has reached out to DOL for remark.
The letter got here a day after a federal decide quickly blocked the administration from suspending operations at Job Corps facilities as critics argue the transfer is unlawful.
