City, partners launch student training effort

Los Angeles officials, businesses and a community college are joining forces to address a skilled-worker shortage and high unemployment in some city neighborhoods.

The Regional Economic Development Institute, to be announced today by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, aims to train thousands of low-income students in the skills necessary for jobs with city agencies and private businesses. The institute, which has already begun operation, is modeled after successful programs in other cities that match training with available local jobs, many in technology-related fields.

“We have a very robust economy here,” said Denise Fairchild, who directs the new institute at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College near downtown, “but every employer we’ve talked to is dying to find skilled workers.”

And though the regional economy may be strong, unemployment and underemployment remain stubbornly high in pockets such as South Los Angeles.

The institute’s industry partners, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the California Restaurant Assn. and Southern California Gas Co., will help develop curriculum to enable students to move directly from the classroom into jobs, she said, although jobs are not guaranteed. The institute will emphasize emerging technology fields such as solar installation and water recycling and reclamation.

The training programs for adults vary in length and cost depending on the skills or jobs. The institute also plans to work with middle and high schools to help students develop career plans.

In the past, Fairchild said, job-training agencies and employers often “operated in isolation.”

A $1-million donation from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation has helped fund the institute.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank typically hires as many as 4,000 workers in Los Angeles County, said Brad Dinsmore, Bank of America Corp.’s West region executive.

The bank already hires graduates of Trade-Tech’s training programs as bank tellers and for other positions in mortgage finance, he said.

This kind of industry-focused training program has helped cut unemployment in other regions, said Evelyn Ganzglass, a director at the Washington-based Center for Law and Social Policy. “Unemployed people get trained for entry-level positions, but often they get their skills upgraded so they can later advance to other jobs,” she said.

The Los Angeles program is similar to one launched a decade ago by SF Works, a nonprofit workforce training agency in San Francisco.

Students learned basic skills within the context of a specific job or employer, said Terri Feeley, SF Works’ executive director. Those interested in bioscience jobs, for example, learned about ratios and percentages by mixing solutions, she said, while students hoping for a job in construction learned the same math concepts by working with the kinds of calculations builders need to make.

These programs are “absolutely worthwhile,” Feeley said. They draw companies such as Bank of America because “if they get the right people there’s less turnover, and that helps both the employer and the worker.”

To learn more about the Regional Economic Development Institute, e-mail Trade-Tech Vice President Marcy Drummond at drummomj@lattc.edu.

molly.selvin@latimes.com