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Workers in Northern California will soon enjoy a giant step toward the 21st century by means of a $5 million worker-training grant awarded by a federal program called WIRED.

The initial phase of the WIRED grant was a fund of $500,000 to develop a plan to address California unemployment issues. That plan is almost complete. Once it is done, the US Dept. of Labor will release the remainder of the $5 million grant. 

WIRED is the acronym for Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development, an initiative operating under the auspices of the Employment and Training Administration within the US Department of Labor.   The federal training grant awarded to Northern California was recently announced by US Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.  In her announcement, Secretary Chao stated, “Investing in area workforces through this collaborative approach will boost entire regions’ economic vitality.” 

Keeping job skills current and competitive with today’s increasingly global economy and job market are driving forces behind the WIRED initiative.  Secretary Chao adds, “This regional economic development strategy transcends political boundaries to better leverage a region’s assets to help workers succeed in the 21st century worldwide economy.”

Northern California has long been an area known for poor economic performance.  High unemployment rates, inadequate worker skills, and job training programs aggravate this poor economy. The current wave of grants awarded by WIRED, including the $5 million recently awarded to Northern California, is expected to exceed $65 million.  

The WIRED initiative has a proven track record of success with the programs it has developed to improve the economic performance in historically underperforming areas such as Northern California.  WIRED has previously awarded $195 million to 13 regions around the country that now enjoy an improved economic outlook and lower rates of unemployment as a result of the WIRED grants they received in recent years.  These areas of distressed economy were identified by state governors supplying competitive data for regions within their states. 

The $5 million WIRED grant to Northern California will be meted out in two stages.  Funding of the remaining $4.5 million once an implementation plan for the region has been developed will follow an initial gift of $500,000 earmarked for training. 

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