Kenya Tolliver did what President Barack Obama told her, and millions of other unemployed Americans, to do.
After losing her graphic design job, she went back to school to get retrained as a Web designer.
Nine months later, she's still looking for work.
"It's very hard out there to find a job. There's nothing there," said Tolliver, 34, of Austell. "I keep applying and, hopefully, something will come through. Maybe people will start hiring."
With unemployment still high -- metro Atlanta's rate shot up last week to 10.3 percent -- questions abound as to whether worker retraining really works.
While Washington has pumped $10 billion in grants into retraining programs nationwide the last two years, critics say much more is needed to deal with the unprecedented surge in the long-term unemployed. Georgia's public technical colleges, along with for-profit ones that have proliferated during the recession, report huge increases in enrollment, yet many struggle to prepare students for so-called "jobs of the future."
Federal retraining dollars helped 19,050 Georgians go back to school in 2009. About 69 percent of those students got jobs within three months of graduation, according to the state Department of Labor.
Some schools don't adequately retrain workers for new jobs. Some graduates discover that once-promised jobs in nursing or medical billing, for example, now require three or four years of work experience. Or prospective employers demand even more training. Or the futuristic jobs don't exist.
Most schools boast sky-high job-placement rates. But they only tally graduates, not students who dropped out. And many students end up finding jobs in fields they consider inferior to the ones they trained for, or toil for much less money.
And, finally, five people are unemployed for every available job. The retrained can't find jobs that don't exist. And they're competing against already qualified, laid-off workers and other newly minted graduates. "We know that retraining is going to be required, but the difficulty is, we're not really providing it," said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University. "We haven't put the money into the retraining of adults who need to go back to school [because] the jobs they held are not coming back. It's a different world." About 672,000 people participated in the main federally financed retraining program last year, up 70 percent from the year before. Obama likened retraining to "a stepping stone to a new future." A half-million Georgians are unemployed, half of them longer than six months. Armed with federal money, they're going back to school. Georgia notched a 50 percent increase in adults taking retraining classes this year. "Retraining is critically important, particularly in the times in which we are living," said Linda Johnson, an assistant commissioner of the Georgia Department of Labor. "Employees today need transferable skills to transition to another occupation. They need additional knowledge in order to connect with a new opportunity." Pat Barnes' workaday world disappeared in September 2008 when the General Motors factory in Doraville shut down. Then 51, he was too young and financially unsettled to retire. After a year spent fixing his house and searching his soul, Barnes settled on nursing for a next career. Last November he visited DeKalb Workforce Development, the county job-creation agency. Barnes was told that federal retraining money had run out, but to return in January.
A decade ago, when times were flush, Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act, the federal government's retraining pipeline to the states. Washington has appropriated $3.7 billion each of the last two fiscal years to retrain adults, youths and workers who've fallen victim to foreign competition. Obama's economic stimulus package added another $2.9 billion for retraining. The money is available as grants to laid-off workers and others who seek careers in industries -- health care, computer technology, renewable energy -- expected to blossom in the future. Georgetown's Carnevale says more money is needed, particularly since $2.1 billion last year of the WIA money went toward retraining youth -- not the older, unemployed worker who must re-invent himself for a new economy. The U.S. Department of Labor is requesting $3.9 billion in WIA money for 2011, but the final amount hasn't been set. Carnevale contends it would take $25 billion to dent the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate, particularly the 6.8 million Americans who've been without work at least six months. Georgia, which channels federal dollars to 20 Workforce boards around the state, received $189 million in 2009 from Washington for retraining. So far this year, Georgia has received $95.7 million, Johnson said. "Given the fact we have a half-million people unemployed in Georgia, is there ever really enough money to meet the needs everybody might have?" the assistant labor commissioner asked. Barnes, the former GM industrial trainer, said WIA is covering most of his $920 in class and laboratory fees this quarter. He's on track to get his surgical technology certificate from Gwinnett Tech next summer. "With health care, it's not a job you can export to another country," Barnes said. "I knew I had to make a change. And with 77 million baby boomers, health care will be growing for a while." Yes, but will there be a need, in particular, for surgical technicians? Or solar panel installers? Or "self-enrichment education teachers" as the Labor Department predicts? "I don't know what the jobs of the future are, and I study the labor market a lot," said Ken Troske, chairman of the economics department at the University of Kentucky. "The evidence is pretty clear that, on average, retraining provides very limited benefits."
Kenya Tolliver is still looking for the payoff from her retraining. She lost her graphic design job in November 2008. Unable to find work, she earned a Web design certificate from Kennesaw State last October. WIA covered the $1,900 fee. "Their philosophy is you have to work towards a job that's in more demand," said Tolliver, who has pursued dozens of interviews and online resume postings. "I thought the same way -- but I'm still out of work." Georgia's technical college system claimed an 85.5 percent placement rate statewide in fiscal 2009. Gwinnett Tech boasted that 97.7 percent of its students find jobs soon after graduation. The school said a smaller percentage of graduates, 87.8 percent, find work in their "field of study." The percentages drop further if students who started classes, but didn't finish -- a common occurrence -- are counted. And the accounting tallies all students, including recent high-school graduates typically without work or family pressures to interfere with their studies. Troske, the economist, says only one of every three community college students nationwide graduates. Georgia doesn't keep stats on the graduation rates for older students -- the ones targeted by Washington for retraining. The percentage of students age 40 and older rose 36 percent between 2008 and 2009 -- the largest rise of any age group -- at the state's technical schools. David McCulloch, vice president for economic development at Gwinnett Tech, estimates that at least one-third of prospective students "are either laid-off or worried about it." Many, like Doraville's Barnes, seek new careers in health care. The school's nursing program had 35 slots for students last year. Roughly 2,000 qualified people applied, McCulloch said. Many took classes in related fields. Others simply gave up. By fall 2011, Barnes expects to be passing scalpels to surgeons. He'll make upward of $30,000 a year, half his previous salary. The GM retirement package, though, should buffer the pay cut. "Sometimes you have to step back and really start over again," Barnes said. "You have to retrain. You have to make a change. It's a little scary, but you have to step out there when your field of work is gone." Check our sources U.S. Department of Labor: ?Workforce Investment Act -- www.doleta.gov/usworkforce/wia/act.cfm Georgia Department of Labor: Workforce Investment Act -- www.dol.state.ga.us/pdf/wia/wiajs.pdf Bureau of Labor Statistics: ?Hot jobs for 2018 -- http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_103.htm Technical College System of Georgia: www.tcsg.edu // var ranNum = Math.round(Math.random()*1000000); document.write('http://content.yellowbrix.com/images/content/cimage.nsp?ctype=full_story&story_id=147835459&id=thirdage&ip_id=McClatchy-Tribune+Business+News&source_id=The+Atlanta+Journal+and+Constitution&category=Computers&random=' + (ranNum));// ]]>//
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