AIDT News

Several hundred workers recently unemployed because of the economic downturn have found a direct route to new employment through Alabama community colleges.

"Quick action and flexibility of Alabama's community colleges met the request to help a large group of employees losing their jobs at the end of March," said AIDT Director Ed Castile. "We called colleges when we were asked to help these people and the colleges quickly assembled and went into action."

Approximately half of the 700 Elwood Staffing employees who had been in temporary employment contracted with Honda Manufacturing of Alabama completed training March 27 provided by Central Alabama, Gadsden State and Jefferson State community colleges.

"During the past few months, Honda has made several adjustments to vehicle production in response to the severe economic challenges currently faced by the auto industry," said Linda Bailey, division manager for human resources at Honda's Alabama operations. "As economic conditions continued to deteriorate, we were forced to reduce the temporary assignments of our Manufacturing Support Team."

Honda approached AIDT Director Ed Castile to inquire what type of support the state could offer these temporary workers before their assignments with Elwood Staffing came to an end.

"We have been extremely pleased with the response by the state and the two-year college system," said Bailey.

More than 350 unemployed this month have completed Ready To Work training, GED assistance, creation of resumes and preparation for interviews. Ready to Work training provides a career pathway for adults with limited education and employment experience. The workplace environment provides trainees entry level skills required for employment with most businesses and industries in Alabama.

Daily classes were conducted eight hours each day through the month of March. Trainees were provided one-on-one instruction to help meet their individual educational needs to improve their knowledge. Many trainees were able to enhance their computer skills and learn new software. In addition, some trainees were able to prepare for their GED using Official GED practice materials and were able to complete GED certification.

While attending class each participant took the WorkKeys Test and earned an Alabama Career Readiness Certificate. WorkKeys is a national workforce development system that Alabama joined forces with two years ago.

The certificate reports an individual's applied mathematics, locating information, and reading for Information levels of skills in relation to the level of skills needed in 80 percent of the jobs and occupations contained in the ACT's WorkKeys national database.

Trainees were awarded a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Certificate based on their scores on the three assessments. Earning a GED and Alabama Career Readiness Certificate will increase each participant's ability to obtain future employment.

"The AIDT Ready To Work program provided me with some much needed information," said Rodney Perkins, recently unemployed. "Being retired military and attending the military transition program, I feel the AIDT staff took a more personal and hands-on-approach on skills such as communications, diversity, and resume writing and preparation.

"I would personally recommend this program to anyone regardless of his or her current employment status. Within days of completing my resume on line, that the staff patiently helped me prepare, I received several job offers and I've also had a couple of very promising interviews. Furthermore, I was invited to take a test for a company. The skills I was taught were on the test."

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