A northwest Indiana workforce agency is getting a portion of a $3.6 million grant from Wal-Mart’s charitable foundation to back education and employment services for retail workers, with extra support from a Cook County group.
In March, the foundation tapped the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, which provides free services to job seekers and businesses, to select 10 workforce development boards across the country seeking funding for innovative retail job training services. The Cook County organization plans to study the results of the recipients’ programs to share with roughly 550 workforce development boards nationwide.
The Chicago agency isn’t getting any of the newly announced money, but more than $1 million of the foundation’s total $10.9 million grant will fund local programs, including a new center providing retail-focused training at 218 S. Wabash Ave. that recently opened and aims to serve at least 600 people this year, said Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership spokeswoman Dunni Cosey Gay.
The center will provide services for current retail workers trying to advance their careers. Such programs can be harder to find funding for than efforts aimed at the unemployed or first-time job-seekers. The goal is to help people move up to better-paying jobs and open up entry-level spots for people entering the workforce, CEO Karin Norington-Reaves said.
The workforce partnership will distribute the rest of the $10.9 million later, either with additional money for the 10 recipients announced Wednesday or new workforce development boards, according to Wal-Mart’s foundation.
The only local group out of the 10 funded agencies is the Valparaiso, Ind.-based Center of Workforce Innovations, which will get about $387,000 to establish a retail career lab at a Northwest Indiana mall and provide on-the-job training in areas including management; production and inventory management; and loss prevention, the foundation said. Certifications will be issued to participants who complete National Retail Federation Training programs, the foundation said. Grants to boards in other cities will finance internships for young workers, hiring fairs and post-job placement counseling.
Workforce development boards haven’t traditionally focused on helping workers with retail-specific skills even though about 59 percent of people have worked in the sector, according to Julie Gehrki, senior program director at the foundation. The National Retail Federation says the retail industry directly accounted for about 28 million jobs in 2009 and indirectly supported an additional 13 million jobs.
But retail jobs, and the skills required, are changing, Gehrki said. Wal-Mart recently said it will cut about 7,000 back-office store jobs as it centralizes invoice and accounting departments. Gehrki said many of the employees affected will be able to remain at Wal-Mart in different positions involving more work with customers, though some are “not your traditional front-line jobs” and may require more understanding of digital technology.
And while Wal-Mart is adding customer-facing jobs, some of the fastest-growing jobs in the sector overall are in fields demanding entirely different skills, like IT and cybersecurity, Norington-Reaves said.
“By getting the workforce development boards involved in the sector, it can have tremendous impact on shaping the skills that are needed not just as you advance your skills in this sector, but in others,” Gehrki said.
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