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Governor Steve Beshear's Communications Office
WorkNow Kentucky puts thousands to work in the Commonwealth
Summer jobs program helps nearly one in five participants find permanent jobs last year
FRANKFORT, Ky.– Across the Commonwealth, 1,442 Kentuckians landed a permanent job as the result of a federally subsidized summer employment program in 2010. WorkNow Kentucky provided 9,314 low-income youth and adults with children with temporary summer employment. Of those participants, 19 percent transitioned into unsubsidized permanent jobs.
That ongoing success is just one of the encouraging results of a program that injected more than $27.7 million federal stimulus dollars into the Kentucky economy from June 1, 2010, through Sept. 30, 2010, and provided Kentucky employers with much-needed help during the recession.
In addition to helping job seekers, the program gave 2,937 public, private and nonprofit employers across the state the opportunity to employ temporary workers that they could not otherwise afford. It also aided the state’s economy through dollars earned by participants spent locally for goods and services. help
Gov. Steve Beshear praised the program as a model of how federal, state and local government can work together to meet the needs of citizens during a difficult economic time.
“WorkNow Kentucky has had many positive results for both employers and job seekers across the state,” said Gov. Beshear. “Employers that did not have the money to hire people were able to expand their workforce without obligation or cost, while job seekers got a paycheck and valuable work experience, and made connections with employers.”
WorkNow Kentucky was a collaborative effort of the state’s workforce and human services agencies. Kentucky’s Education and Workforce Development Cabinet and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services worked together to administer the initiative through the state’s 10 Local Workforce Investment Boards (LWIB).
The government program was made possible by federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In addition, the Kentucky General Assembly approved $1,062,652 to cover the balance of funding that was required by the federal government.
Total expenditures for WorkNow Kentucky including federal and state funding were $28,855,022, according to the Kentucky Office of Training and Employment (OET) in the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet. In addition, in-kind contributions by local employers for supervision and training were valued at $5,880,352.
To be eligible for WorkNow Kentucky, job seekers had to either be a youth age 16-24 years living with a parent or caretaker relative, or a parent residing with a child under age 18 years, or age 18 and attending secondary school with a household income of less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level or eligible to receive Kentucky’s TANF assistance program called K-TAP.
To review a complete report of the 2010 WorkNow Kentucky program, go to www.educationcabinet.ky.gov.
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