Supervisor Don Knabe, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, is seeking to create as many as 10,000 temporary jobs in Los Angeles County thanks to funding available in the Federal Stimulus Package. Knabe introduced legislation this week that would utilize over $100 million in federal funding to create subsidized employment opportunities in County departments, private sector employers, non-profit organizations, and in cities across Los Angeles County.
There is a limited timeframe when this federal funding is available, so we have no time to waste to make sure our unemployed residents can benefit from the thousands of jobs we can create right here in Los Angeles County, said Supervisor Knabe. Our local unemployment rate is hovering around 10-percent and we have a major opportunity to help our residents by creating immediate jobs thanks to this funding.
The goal of the motion is to place 10,000 unemployed local workers in financially subsidized positions from May 2009 through March 2010. The funding would come from the federal Emergency Temporary Aid for Needy Families Contingency Fund and would provide a minimum of $100 million to the County to create temporary jobs. The federal portion of the funding provides 80-percent of the subsidy, and the County would have to provide a 20-percent share.
Subsidized employment is one of the major priorities of this fund, and we intend to take full advantage of the significant network we have in place to provide training and employment to ensure this funding gets out the door and put towards jobs, said Knabe. We cannot do this alone – we will be engaging both our County Workforce Investment Board, as well as the other eight Workforce Investment Boards across the County to help us employ these folks.
Under Knabe’s motion, the County’s Chief Executive Officer will determine the feasibility of creating and coordinating employment opportunities that are possible through the available federal funding.