Workforce Challenge

Taiwan Hill had been out of work for more than two year and desperately needed to find a way to obtain a job again.

Workforce Solution

Mr. Hill connected with the NEG-OJT program through the Eastside One Stop Career Center, where he began going during his unemployment to connect with training opportunities, improve his résumé, and brush up on his interviewing skills. He started his on-the-job training at Second Chance in September, 2011, and finished in March, 2012. The program, operated by the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED), is called the National Emergency Grant On-The-Job Training (NEG-OJT). Taiwan stated, “I was brought up in the construction field; this is the work I love to do.” The program is federally funded, with the money funneled to MOED through the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (DLLR) Division of Workforce Development and Adult Learning (DWDAL). The length of the training period depends on the complexity of the job as well as the participant’s skills and prior work history. The Baltimore program averages three months of training.

Outcomes & Benefits

Through this innovative program designed to get the long-term unemployed back to work while reducing training costs for employers in occupations where skilled, qualified workers are in short supply, Mr. Hill, 35, was paid to train for a new career in the emerging deconstruction field, that draws upon his existing skills and experience. Taiwan stated, “This has given me steady work and a paycheck, and something to do with my life instead of sitting around,” said Mr. Hill. “I love to come home now and allow my kids to see me in my work clothes, see me being positive. They see their father as a man now. That’s how I feel.”