Alaska gets $7M grant for energy training

On July 5 U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao announced a $7 million grant to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development to increase the state’s capacity to recruit and train workers for careers in the energy industry. U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, joined Chao for the announcement at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“Alaska’s vast energy resources continue to create a demand for skilled workers,” Chao said. This $7 million grant will help train a pipeline of workers with cutting-edge skills for good jobs in the energy sector of Alaska’s economy, she said.

The grant will operate through a partnership between the Alaska Vocational Technical Center, the University of Alaska and industry associations. And according to a Department of Labor press release Alaska will use the grant to integrate vocational and technical training; to increase the use of apprenticeships to train workers; and “to continue to develop the public workforce system’s One-Stop Career Centers to become more industry driven in addressing local economic needs.”

The press release also says that the grant will help create more than 43,000 jobs in the state over the next eight years.

The grant is the first in a series of investments that the Department of Labor will make in the energy sector under President Bush’s High Growth Job Training Initiative.

—Petroleum News