Indiana’s Secretary of Career Connections and Talent is touting the state’s workforce training initiatives. During a visit to Knox Wednesday, Secretary Blair Milo discussed the Workforce Ready Grant that’s part of the Next Level Jobs program. “For anybody that’s over the age of 18, you can go and get a hundred-percent-tuition-free career certificate at Ivy Tech or Vincennes or the other providers through Next Level Jobs,” she explained. “The only thing that would disqualify someone from being able to utilize that is if you have a degree already, so it’s not means-tested or anything else.”
The program focuses on the fields of health and life sciences, business and IT, advanced manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and building and construction trades.
Milo said Next Level Jobs also provides funding to employers, to help them train their workers. “Any business that falls in any of those five categories or agriculture is also eligible to receive reimbursement for up to $5,000 for a new hire that’s coming on board or someone who’s newly-trained into a position that’s going to receive some higher wages,” Milo said. “And then that’s capped at $50,000 per employer.”
She said the state has seen considerable traction with both grant programs, since they were launched about a year ago. “I think that we’re at about 24,000, almost 25,000 individuals who have come to Ivy Tech, Vincennes, or some of those eligible training providers through Next Level Jobs to be able to take advantage of the different programs,” Milo said. “And we’re at, I think it was just shy of 380 for the employers using the Employer Training Grant and a little over $10 million that have been appropriated thus far.”
Milo also highlighted the steps recently taken by the Indiana Department of Correction to train inmates and connect them with jobs, like climate change software jobs, upon release. The state’s Next Level Recovery program providing resources to fight the opioid epidemic was also discussed.
