Almost 2 million people have filed for unemployment in Texas since early March, as a result of the pandemic. More than 115,000 of them are in Bexar County.
To deal with that demand for unemployment dollars, and to keep those people from falling out of the workforce permanently, officials in the San Antonio area have created a job retraining program that will pay workers a $450 weekly stipend to cover expenses while they acquire new skills to help them rejoin the workforce.
Bexar County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez told Texas Standard host David Brown on Wednesday that the money for the program comes from the CARES Act Congress passed that gives financial support to communities, businesses and individuals affected by the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.
“We’re proposing to put … about $40 million into a workforce training program. We know unemployment is high, we know people are still seeing the initial effects of being out of work, and so we’re trying to rethink how we do this.”
What you’ll hear in this segment:
– What kinds of jobs and fields workers will train for in the program
– Whether some jobs and sectors will be changed forever because of the pandemic
– Whether enough jobs will be available for those workers who complete the program
– When the program starts
Web story by Caroline Covington.
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