AlisonHarris 617-626-7121
AlexGoldstein 617-626-7108

DEVAL L. PATRICK

Governor

TIMOTHY P. MURRAY

Lieutenant Governor

SUZANNE M. BUMP

Secretary

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding will go to the different boards for the one-stop career centers across the state. The board and the centers serve both employers and job-seekers in communities across the state. These resources are a portion of the $67 million recently announced statewide, and will assist all of the 37 One-Stop Career Centers throughout Massachusetts.  

One Stop Career Centers are making training a top priority, ensuring dislocated workers receive help assessing their skills and weighing new options. This funding will help prepare workers for success with literacy training, assistance with GED completion, and help with improving English proficiency.

The ARRA funding provides $21.2 million to serve dislocated workers and more than $10 million to help low-income adults find work. With these new resources, more people will be able to enroll in training for high demand jobs in careers such as healthcare. Dislocated worker funds support statewide programming for unemployed workers as well as programming in the Commonwealth’s 16 workforce regions.

With summer approaching, Governor Patrick plans to combine $6.67 million from the state’s YouthWorks summer jobs program with $3.1 million in public safety funds and $21.1 million for youth employment and educational programming provided under the federal recovery bill totaling $30 million statewide to support summer employment and additional services. The Governor’s approach will maximize state and federal resources, helping to increase the number of jobs to an estimated 10,000 for low-income young people between the ages of 14-24. 

Below are the regional allocations for the state’s 16 Workforce Investment Boards.  To view the regional press releases, click on an individual board.

Investments to help put unemployed individuals back to work are critical components of Governor Patrick’s Massachusetts Recovery Plan, which combines state, federal and, where possible, private efforts to provide immediate and long-term relief and position the Commonwealth for recovery in the following ways:

·         Deliver immediate relief by investing in the road, bridge and rail projects that put people to work today and providing safety net services that sustain people who are especially vulnerable during an economic crisis;

·         Build a better tomorrow through education and infrastructure investments that strengthen our economic competitiveness, prepare workers for the jobs of the future and support clean energy, broadband and technology projects that cut costs while growing the economy; and

·         Reform state government by eliminating the pension and ethics loopholes that discredit the work of government and revitalize the transportation networks that have suffered from decades of neglect and inaction.