Lucas County to use federal money to create summer jobs for youths
4/21/2009The Lucas County Commissioners plan to announce Tuesday morning that they will use $2.3 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to create 1,000 summer jobs for young adults in the Toledo area.
The program is aimed at workers ages 1624 and will provide summer jobs from May 1 through Sept. 30. The jobs will be for 25 hours per week and the workers will be paid a minimum of $7.50 an hour, with an additional incentive for youth who have perfect attendance during their summer employment.
Commissioner Ben Konop said in a press release that he will vote for the proposal that will be submitted at Tuesdays commission meeting that will allocate a total of $5.6 million in federal funds to fund the summer jobs program, as well as to subsidize the training and schooling of displaced and newly hired workers, and to fund a project to create "green" jobs.
He said that, as elected officials, the commissioners need to "be doing everything we can in this time of economic turmoil to help people get back to work and back on their feet again."
In announcing the summer jobs program, Commissioner Pete Gerken said in a separate release that, "This will not only give these young adults good work experience for the future, it will also be a major boost to our local economy in these challenging economic times."
Those employers interested in participating in the program can learn the details at a meeting to be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the Dana Conference Center at the UT Health Science Campus.