Harrisburg: Representatives of the PA Department of Labor and Industry announced in early August that 400 residents of Lancaster County exhausted their Unemployment Compensation benefits during the week ending July 18, 2009. That pattern has continued through the summer. Most UC claimants are entitled to some 77 weeks of support between the core program and additional benefits made possible under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Local workforce investment officials see this as one of the more disturbing trends that are a part of the recession that began in the last quarter of 2008. "It appears that this recession will be similar to the last one with a recovery underway relatively quickly in spite of the more complicated disruptions of the financial system but with employment lagging behind dramatically," commented Scott Sheely, Executive Director of the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board. "We are concerned that people do not wait until their unemployment runs out to address their needs for retraining and preparing themselves to participate in the recover as it unfolds."

Sheely added further that the Board has made nearly $1.5 million in stimulus funding available for the development and implementation of more than 35 short and longer-term skill training programs. Topics include construction, building maintenance, building energy technology, adminstrative support, bookkeeping, sales, printing, industrial machine maintenance, customer service, medical transcription, and many others. This training directly supports the 100 occupations that the Board has identified as being most important as the recovery develops. Click here for that list.

As a part of the ongoing programs of the PA CareerLink, the service facility at 1016 N. Charlotte St. in northern Lancaster City, offers a Career Information Seminar every Tuesday at 1:30 pm. Click here for more information.