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Unemployed get help to return to work
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By CHUCK CLEMENT, Staff Reporter
| 10/19/2009 |
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South Dakota's unemployed are looking at a tight job market during the foreseeable future because some of the state's fortunes are tied to the rest of the nation during the current recession.
The state has about 22,000 unemployed men and women who are either looking for employment or are preparing themselves for their next job by taking training classes or getting additional education. The local offices that are operated by the state Department of Labor often serve as a major resource for job seekers because they provide a wide range services supported by state government.
Madison's SDDOL office can help residents enrolled in the Temporary Aid for Needy Families or Food Stamp programs or individuals looking for workforce training. Jim Baltzer, the Madison DOL office manager, said that some laid-off workers stop by the office to use its phones or Internet connection to search or apply for jobs. Others learn or brush up on their computer skills by taking in-house computer classes for Microsoft programs such as Word, Access and Excel.
"It's difficult to find a job today where the employee doesn't need to do some work with a computer," Baltzer said. "We have a lot of people who come into our offices and take advantage of that program to become more familiar with computers and how they can be used on the job."
The staff at the Madison office typically assists residents from Lake, Miner and Moody counties and part of McCook County which includes Salem.
In September, Baltzer said a headcount of visitors to the local DOL office averaged 37 persons per day during September. The daily headcount was down slightly from August when it averaged 43 visitors. However, both numbers are noticeably higher than the foot traffic during September 2008 when the visitors averaged 29 per day.
Baltzer said the visitors to the Madison office do more than look for work and some make multiple visits each month.
Among the repeat visitors were job seekers who completed Teknimedia computer training courses, which can help those individuals unfamiliar with computer use learn about those systems through a self-paced, online course.
State officials also offered help through a re-employment program to some South Dakotans who had been without employment for an extended period of time. The re-employment program offered one-on-one attention to help the unemployed brush up on their job interview skills, employment search abilities and improvements to writing resumes and cover letters.
Those programs can assist literally hundreds of workers in the area since Madison had 425 persons classified as unemployed in August. During the same month, Moody County had 375 unemployed, Miner County 75 unemployed and McCook County 140 persons without employment.
The unemployment rates in the four-county area range from 9 percent in Moody County to 4.9 percent in McCook County. Lake County's unemployment rate for August stood at 6.3 percent and Miner County was about the same at 6 percent.
However, South Dakota's current unemployment situation, which stands at 4.8 percent, is much better than other states in the nation. The entire United States had 9.8 percent unemployment with about 15 million individuals out of work from a labor force of 155 million workers.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia had unemployment rates standing at least at 10 percent during August. Michigan led in unemployment at 15.2 percent, Nevada second at 13.2 percent and Rhode Island at 12.8 percent. Both California and Oregon had unemployment rates of 12.2 percent.
North Dakota was the only state that reported a lower unemployment rate than South Dakota, standing at 4.3 percent in August.
Many of South Dakota's unemployed are receiving retraining so they can offer more skills to potential employers. Baltzer said some courses offer six to eight weeks of training to earn a commercial driver's license for the trucking industry or to learn how to weld metal, conduct retail sales or operate heavy equipment. Still others are enrolling in up to two-year courses to earn an associate's business degree or degrees in computer-aided drafting or biomedical technical work.
The health-care employment sector provided the sole bright spot for private-industry job seekers in the DOL's September report, because the sector had increased employment by about 900 workers from the previous year.
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©Madison Daily Leader 2010
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