Goal is to help job seekers connect with employers in South
County
Morgan Hill – Career training workshops in Spanish and English will soon be available at the new One-Stop Career Center in Morgan Hill.
The center is part of the Silicon Valley Workforce Investment Network, a comprehensive resource connecting employers, workers and job seekers in Santa Clara County. There are now four One-Stop centers in South County with other locations in Gilroy, San Jose and Campbell that have been serving about 120,000 job seekers per year.
Silicon Valley Workforce Investment Network Director Jeff Ruster said Morgan Hill’s One-Stop was a long time coming.
“We wanted to open a center in Morgan Hill because it’s a dynamic city,” he said, “where we have strong partnerships with the city and the (Morgan Hill) Chamber of Commerce.”
Ruster also alluded to a high number of potential job seekers in the community in need of the center’s free services.
The South County employment centers are aimed at helping two domains of workers: Low-income individuals looking for a start, and longtime workers who have been recently laid-off.
“We’ve seen people from Pratt and Whitney and people who are farm workers,” Ruster said, referring to the large San Jose plant that closed in 2005 eliminating some 600 jobs.
“So we serve low-income individuals and those who’ve worked for 30 years and who lost their jobs to overseas out souring,” Ruster said.
The center opened June 7. It includes a staff of two bilingual employees and 10 Internet-connected computers for clients to use.
“Our hope would be in the first year to see 20 to 30 people a day,” Ruster said, “and that number would double over the next year or so. That’s a very conservative estimate.”
One-Stop Career Centers are federally funded through the U.S. Department of Labor. While this year’s allocation was $15 million, that figure may drop next year. Still, Ruster and others feel the new center is justified based on the number of people who would be served.
Drop-in services are currently available, but workshops and classes at the new center won’t be running full force until July.
Tony Burchyns cover Morgan Hill for the Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106 ex. 201 or tb*******@mo*************.com.
