Mayor Richard M. Daley talked up a new technology sector job-training program today, distinctive in both the job seekers it targets and how it’s funded.
Speaking at the downtown law office of Mayer Brown, Daley unveiled a plan to train 175 laid off employees at Chicago Career Tech, a public-private partnership that includes area businesses and philanthropic group such as Northern Trust Bank and the Joyce Foundation.
Chicago Career Tech is strictly for “middle class workers” – those who earned $25,000-$75,000 annually in a past job and were recently on state unemployment benefits.
Also, the average age of the applicants is 46.
The Mayor described the applicant pool as a “group of workers that’s increasingly at risk of becoming permanently unemployed because of changing workforce needs.”
Chicago Career Tech will train workers in fields like information tech and digital media. And they’ll be trained – and the hope is eventually employed – by local businesses.
“Government alone can’t operate a program like this one,” Daley says.
That’s clearly the case when Chicago has roughly a $550 million budget deficit and can’t count on much from Springfield, thanks to Illinois’ astonishing $13 billion budget hole.
In fact, the initial city cash will come from, of all places, the “Parking Meter Human Infrastructure Fund.” Down the line, the city hopes that $25 million from the meter fund will train up to 30,000 workers.
If the training program goes as planned, the city could point to a silver lining in the parking meter lease fiasco.
Windy Citizen 