Jobless Hoosiers with Vouchers Can Apply for Federal Extended Benefits Beginning July 28

Indiana's Department of Workforce Development (DWD) will begin on Wednesday, July 28, 2010, accepting online vouchers from some of 80,000 Hoosiers who are eligible to collect benefits under the federally funded unemployment extension program.

In light of rules to qualify for these retroactive benefits, Hoosiers will need to complete their weekly vouchers on Indiana's online filing system, called Uplink. Each person will need to verify they were unemployed through no fault of their own, report where they looked for work each week, and list any outside income earned each week at issue. Every eligible individual will need to complete a voucher for each week of benefits they want to collect, meaning that vouchers are due from a Hoosier seeking to collect retroactive benefits.

Under a tiered jobless-benefit system, Hoosiers entering the Extended Benefits (EB) program for the first time will not have vouchers available on Aug. 3. The vouchers will be available for only individuals resuming their collection of extended benefits; the EB program lapsed in mid-June until Congress reauthorized the program in mid-July. DWD will post vouchers on the Uplink hompages of Hoosiers previously enrolled in EB; the vouchers will encompass the benefits they had remaining when the program ended on June 12, DWD said July 26.

Thus, for Hoosiers moving into the EB program for the first time, federal mandates require that each individual apply in-person at a local WorkOne Center and bring his or her eligibility letter from DWD. All full-service WorkOne Centers around the state, including Ft. Wayne, Auburn and Marion, will be open from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. from Aug. 3 through Aug. 6 to handle an expected increase in claims. WorkOne Express offices, such as those in Decatur, Huntington, LaGrange, Kendallville, Angola, Wabash, Bluffton and Columbia City, will maintain normal business hours.

Finally, Hoosiers eligible for retroactive benefits should visit their homepage on Indiana's Uplink system prior to July 31 to make sure they don't have any pending applications or links seeking information. In some cases, this information will be required for vouchers to appear by Aug. 3.
 
 Go to DWD PRESS RELEASE

 Go to DWD FAQ FACT SHEET

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Questa Foundation's College Debt-Forgiveness Effort Seeks To Boost High-Skilled Workforce in Region 

Thousands of high-paying jobs in advanced manufacturing and engineering likely will open by 2020 in Northeast Indiana, and regional organi- zations are acting now to help prepare young Hoosiers to thrive in these jobs. 

The Questa Foundation for Education is imple- menting a $500,000 program over five years to help regional college students pay for higher education if they agree to reside and work in Northeast Indiana after graduation.  Under the innovative program, students can borrow up to $20,000 over four years and receive incentives valued at up to 50 percent in debt forgiveness if they maintain academic requirements and commit to living and working in the 11-county
region for five years after graduation.

OFFICIALS SEEK TO FILL TALENT PIPELINE SO THAT
NEW GENERATION OF HIGH-TECH WORKERS CAN STEP-UP
With upcoming retirements of current workers, thousands of high-skill jobs are expected to open at Northeast Indiana employers engaged in the advanced manufacturing, defense and aerospace sectors.  "We want to make sure we've got the talent pipeline to fill those jobs when they become available," Leonard Helfrich, grant director for the Talent Initiative, said July 22, 2010.  "The de- fense, aerospace and advanced manufacturing industries provide high-paying, high-quality jobs; those are the exact jobs we want to encourage to remain in our area," he added.  The Talent Initiative is a Northeast Indiana program aiming to boost educational and training achievements of the regional workforce.

Among students who grew-up in Northeast Indiana but left the region for college, less than 35 percent returned to the region to live and work, explained Questa Foundation Executive Director Christina Smith.  "We want to provide some added incentives for these engineering students to consider study in our region," she said, "because we think that's going to help with grad retention."

The debt-forgiveness program marks the first time the Questa Foundation has earmarked funds for a specific field of study.  "The reason we picked defense, aerospace and advanced manufacturing is because there's a great need," Smith said.

Beyond the $500,000 debt-forgiveness pledge, Questa plans to earmark six loan awards for students who seek an advanced manufacturing degree at Ivy Tech Community College Northeast.  Moreover, Questa intends to direct 10 percent of its annual loan awards for students enrolled in engineering at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), Indiana Tech and Trine University; for their part, each of the three institutions has committed to paying an additional 25 percent for individuals in the debt-forgive- ness effort.  Some students, therefore, could have 75 percent forgiven from their overall college loans. 

"If a student borrows twenty-thousand dollars for a four-year degree in engineering, we forgive fifty percent of it, and the university pays back another twenty-five percent.  That student walks away with a bachelor's degee and only five-thousand dollars of debt.  That's a deal," said Smith.       

In addition, officials hope the program will help reverse a disheartening trend that has emerged in Northeast Indiana:  per capita income for the region has been dropping in recent years.  "It's partly because there have been a number of moves of corporate centers.  It's no fault of anyone," said Helfrich, "but [the corporation] takes higher paying jobs with it when it leaves town.  If you don't maintain your talent pipeline over the course of a decade or two, the corporation may just leave behind the lower paying jobs."          

 

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Talent Initiative Issues Guidelines, Application for $2.3-million in Grants for Teaching Science, Math and Project-Based Learning in N.E. Indiana Schools

Highlighting its ultimate goal of strengthening Northeast Indiana's workforce, the $20-million Talent Initiative on June 23, 2010, issued guidelines and an application for $2.3 million in professional development grants aiming to boost science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) as well as project-based learning (PBL) efforts in public and private schools.

"The Talent Initiative is focused on accelerating education and training initiatives in STEM-based curricula and project-based learning, and we are excited about being able to offer this opportunity to Northeast Indiana educators," Talent Initiative Director Leonard Helfrich said.  "We've already invested in developing a regional network of New Tech High Schools, and now this initiative aims to offer the same opportunities in STEM and PBL throughout the entire region, not just at the New Tech High Schools," he explained.

Moreover, the pool of $2.3 million directed for professional development grants seeks to:  increase the content knowledge of teachers in science, technology, engineering and math; improve the skills of teachers in delivering STEM-related curricula to students; and boost the use of project-based learning to instill rigor- ous content knowledge in students.

The grants are intended to support public and private K-through-12 school teachers and adminis- trators, as well as faculty and staff in institutions of higher education, in one of the following categories:

 Regionally Coordinated Initiatives. Non-school based organizations may submit requests for funds to support regional professional development in implementation of STEM and/or advanced methodologies including project-based learning (PBL).  Applications may include non-profit organizations affiliated with STEM or PBL, and applicants may be partnered with one another or school affiliates; and

 School/District Change Initiatives. Schools and school districts may submit requests for funds to support local professional development and implementation in STEM and PBL.  Applicants may include entire schools, teams within schools, school districts, or a consortium of any of those listed. 

"All professional development must improve practice and curriculum to enhance student achievement in PBL.  Priority will be given to initiatives which exhibit a focus on STEM-curriculum.  Recipients are expected to exercise professional leadership by sharing new learning with their colleagues," the Talent Initiative said in a statement, noting that grants likely will be awarded via two grant cycles.  The deadline for the first cycle of grant applications is Dec. 1, 2010, and the governing board will make a final decision on recipients by mid-March 2011. 

The Talent Initiative covers 10 counties in Northeast Indiana and was established in 2009 by a $20-million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.; the initiative's key goals are to increase the base of highly skilled workers to meet the needs of the defense/aerospace and advanced manufacturing industries in Northeast Indiana, while increasing job quality and reversing the current decline in regional per capita income.  The Talent Initiative receives financial oversight from Community Partnerships, Inc., a supporting organization of the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne and operational over- sight from the Northeast Indiana Fund, a supporting organization of the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. 

For additional information on the process or to request grant guidelines and application, please contact Talent Initiative Director Leonard Helfrich at (260) 469-3472.

 

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Northeast Indiana Gains Jobs as May 2010 Regional Jobless Rate Falls to 10.4%; Region Not Out of Woods Yet

Employment gains continued in Northeast Indiana during May 2010 as the regional jobless rate dropped to 10.4 percent from 10.7 percent during the previous month. Thus, Northeast Indiana's economy continues to advance toward recovery from the deep recession of 2008 and 2009.

In further encouraging signals, the unem- ployment rates from four key barometers all dropped:  the jobless rate for Northwest Indiana fell to 10.2 percent in May 2010 from 10.5 percent the prior month; Northern Indiana's rate slipped to 11.7 percent in May from 11.9 percent in April 2010; Indiana's statewide rate also shrank, moving down to 9.7 percent in May from 9.9 percent during the previous month; and  the U.S. national jobless rate fell to 9.3 percent in May from 9.5 percent in April.

Despite the improved employment numbers, Northeast Indiana's labor force continues to experience the stresses and pains of the global recession and economic restructuring, and more months of growth and recovery are needed for employers to create substantial numbers of new jobs. Individuals who are out-of-work should continue to talk to WorkOne's employment specialists in an effort to boost their job skills and training.

During May 2010, Northeast Indiana's labor force stood at 371,387 individuals, with 332,628 of them employed throughout the region's 11 counties.  Thus, 38,759 Hoosier adults were jobless in the region during May.  All except one of the counties within the region experienced an unemployment rate decline as follows:

Adams County, 9.8 percent in May 2010 compared with 10.4 percent in April '10;
 Allen County, 10.0 percent in May, 10.3 percent in April;
DeKalb County, 11.0 percent in May, 11.1 percent in April;
Grant County, 11.3 percent in May, 11.0 percent in April;
 Huntington County, 10.7 percent in May, 11.1 percent in April;
LaGrange County, 10.9 percent in May, 11.6 percent in April;
 Noble County, 12.1 percent in May, 12.6 percent in April;
 Steuben County, 11.5 percent in May, 11.7 percent in April;
 Wabash County, 10.3 percent in May, 10.5 percent in April;
Wells County, 9.0 percent in May, 9.3 percent in April; and
 Whitley County, 10.2 percent in May compare to 10.6 percent in April.  PLEASE NOTE:  All jobless rates in this story are not seasonally adjusted.

As the regional economy recovers, Northeast Indiana companies and organizations will require that new employees have up-to-date skills in areas including:  using computers;  using the Internet;
 using email for work activities; using word processing, presentation, calculation and other software programs; showing organizational skills; communicating with others in a workplace;
 working as part of a team; and other skill sets. WorkOne encourages Hoosiers to attend free seminars covering these topics as well as other important job skills.

BENCHMARK JOBLESS RATES FROM MAY 2009 SHOW
PROGRESS IN RECOVERY, BUT MANY JOBS NEEDED IN N.E.
The benchmark jobless rates in Northeast Indiana and other geographical areas illuminate how far recovery efforts have progressed since the depths of the downturn. For instance, Northeast Indiana's May 2009 benchmark jobless rate was 12.5 percent, compared to 10.4 percent during the same month of 2010. Moroever, the benchmark rates in other areas included:  Northwest Indiana, 10.7 percent in May '09 versus 10.2 percent in May 2010;  Northern Indiana, 13.9 percent benchmark rate in May '09 compared to 11.7 percent in May '10; Indiana, 10.5 percent benchmark in May '09 weighed against 9.7 percent during May 2010; and the U.S. national benchmark was 9.1 percent in May '09 compared to 9.3 percent in the fifth month of 2010.

So is employment and economic recovery near for Northeast Indiana? While numbers are better, many problems nonetheless remain in global markets, including the annual U.S. budget deficit and a $13-trillion U.S. debt in May 2010 as well as the troubling amounts of debt some European nations have accumulated in proportion to their output of goods and services (gross domestic product or GDP). For instance, governments in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal, in particular, are facing severely bloated public payrolls and substantial tax evasion by citizens.

In today's Internet Age that allows instantaneous global e-commerce, what happens in Europe and elsewhere matters to Northeast Indiana's economy, which is intertwined with global markets.

Many Northeast Indiana employers seek to export goods and services to overseas markets, including Europe, so conditions in the European Union and Euro Zone do matter to the local economy. But global factors beyond e-commerce and exports also are in the mix of conditons that impact Northeast Indiana.

Psychology is important in the workings of stock and bond markets in the United States and across the global economy. Thus, if the perception and psychology of Europe's economic and debt conditions continues to sour, including circumstances in Britain, those factors will affect Northeast Indiana via the ripple effects of the global economy.

The regional economy in Northeast Indiana operates within the U.S. and global marketplaces, although substantial gains in regional employment will lag behind overall improvements in the national and global economic landscapes. For instance, banks across the United States gradually increased their lending to small and medium-sized businesses during 2009, so credit markets moved onto a road to functioning in a predictable manner.

Yet when the economy rapidly fell into turmoil and credit makets froze during late 2008, some Northeast Indiana firms were forced to close permanently in part because they were unable to secure short-term loans to fund their payrolls. And other employers took a route of significantly reducing their workforces.

So as national and global economic conditions brighten, lost jobs in Northeast Indiana won't be revived right away. New hiring across the region will occur as companies secure higher demand for their goods and services. Moreover, a process featuring increased hiring spurred by growth in demand — both individually for employers and collectively for the region — will happen on an incremental basis over months.

In another factor encouraging recovery, some employers in Northeast Indiana have maxi- mized, for the most part, their cost-cutting efforts, meaning that if they seek growth during the near term they will have to add workers.

The deep recession that has plagued Northeast Indiana, and elsewhere, struck with such force in part because numerous negative factors occurred at the same time in lots of places in the United States and around the globe.

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Conexus Seeks To Attract Young Hoosiers to High-Skill Careers in Advanced Manufacturing & Logistics

As Northeast Indiana's economy has adjusted to the Digital Age and global e-commerce via the Internet, gigantic changes also have occurred in the Hoosier State's backbone of manufacturing products and transporting them to customers worldwide. In fact, factory workers once referred to as "blue collar" now are called specialists in advanced manufacturing and logistics operations. The current phrase reflects new requirements for more advanced levels of education and skills as well as higher levels of pay and benefits than earned by prior generations of manufacturing workers.

Large numbers of factory and warehouse jobs within Indiana and surrounding states at one time spurred a nickname for the Midwest as the "Rust Belt." But the name and traditional factory jobs are long gone.

HIGH-TECH and HIGH-SKILL JOBS
USING COMPUTERS, ROBOTS, GPS
"Today's advanced manufacturing and logistics jobs are high-tech and high-skill, more about computers, robotics and global tracking systems than assembly lines and forklifts," Conexus Indiana said June 15, 2010, in a new website, Dream It, Do It Indiana.com.  A nonprofit initiative to capitalize on emerging opportunities in advanced manufacturing and logistics, Conexus Indiana delves into issues like workforce development, exploring new market opportunities and building research and supplier networks to help Indiana manufacturing and logistics firms succeed.

Moreover, another current reality is that retirement is nearing for huge numbers of Hoosiers working in advanced manufacturing and logistics (AML) jobs; in this light, a campaign called "Dream It, Do It" is underway to attract young people ages 16-to-24 to careers in AML. The upcoming tidal wave of retirements is projected to cause a shortage of qualified workers in AML's high-growth sectors, including medical manufacturing, aerospace, supply chain management, electric vehicles and other clean technologies.

INDIANA NEEDS COMPETITIVE
WORKERS WITH ADVANCED SKILLS
"To maintain our position as first in the nation in manufacturing, Indiana has to remain competitive in human capital," said Claudia Cummings, vice president of workforce and community programs for Conexus. Dream It, Do It Indiana.com uses interactive, multimedia technology and social media networks in an effort to attract young people.

"We're going to be using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter with our centerpiece being this robust website with multimedia activties including games, videos and quizzes," Cummings added. For instance, a site visitor could watch videos featuring some of Indiana's high-tech companies within advanced manufacturing and logistics, including engines manufactured by Rolls-Royce for unmanned military aircraft, sleek cars powered by EnerDel's lithium-ion batteries and FedEx jets going airborne with packages processed in Indianapolis.

Conexus also seeks to dispel outdated perceptions of AML activities. Prior to the Dream It, Do It campaign, "if you asked high school kids what logistics meant," said Cathy Langham, owner and president of Langham Logistics of Indianapolis, "they didn't know. They had no idea." The campaign seeks to provide insights to Hoosiers, including that logistics is "not just driving trucks," she added. "This will help kids understand what AML is and the opportu- nities."

Over the last few years, Langham Logistics has experienced difficulties in hiring individuals for positions at all levels. "From the basic skills up to the higher-level skills," she explained, "it's not easy. It's been very difficult to find people with the skills we look for."

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