Looking to become certified medical assistants and certified nursing assistants.

We've had tremendous success with the program.

If we get more funding, we'll be doing more of that next year.

Now I want to talk about some resources that may not be on everyone's radar, but deserve a lot of attention because these are free and I think they provide great information.

The Westchester Library system has beefed up their workforce development resources, and they have a lot of job search information.

So I'll leave a flyer with information for that website as well.

We heard Liz talk about the uh maybe not fully recognized career centers, but the career centers offer not only workshops but um scholarships.

You can get um free tuition for a number of in-demand training programs that lead to jobs.

And also they partnered with Indeed, and they have uh a job search academy, which provides four incredibly useful videos for those who are looking to find a job.

And uh also there's a wonderful resource that's put together by the US Department of Labor called Career One Stop, which is a one stop for all information, everything from resume writing and interviewing to finding a job and where the jobs are.

And uh I want to mention two others.

Uh Latasha already mentioned SUNY Reconnect.

This is a state funded program that's been around for a few years because it's become so popular.

I think the state will continue to fund it.

SUNY Recolle Connect is geared toward individuals who are 25 to 55 who don't have a college degree, uh, but they're interested in pursuing a degree in an in-demand occupation at a community college, or if they have a degree but they want to pursue a degree in nursing, they can do that as well.

And it's not only free tuition, but they also provide uh free um uh fees and books and other supplies necessary to complete the training.

So it's incredibly generous, incredibly valuable, and I think it's uh not fully um uh recognized by those who may need to know about it.

And last is workforce Pell, everyone knows about Pell Grants, which are federal subsidies for people who are doing training.

Uh Workforce Pell just provides more flexibility.

So if you want to get a short-term certificate or credential, um, which is basically subsidized by the federal government, it's there waiting for you.

So uh,

yeah, for that the workforce panel is you have to apply.

Each school has to apply to a government's office.

So most schools at this moment in New York has been approved for workforce panel but we are in the process.

So

I'm gonna leave a flyer with the information of the resources I just mentioned, and then uh we also know that there are many job fairs coming up, and we are having a job fair with the county on October 28th.

We circulating a flyer, it's gonna be at the County Center at 2 to 4 p.m.

We get about 40 to 50 of our members uh to attend, and we normally get about 300 or so job seekers.

So I think promoting all of these job fairs is one of the best things we can do because there are too many job seekers who are just applying online.

That means you get about 20 seconds if a recruiter is going to review your resume.

If you go to a job fair, you're probably gonna have two or more minutes face to face with a recruiter, which will significantly increase the uh chances that you get an entity of release to a job.

There's basically a job fair every week in October.

I feel like I get a lot of notes, especially from Joe.

Yeah,

from your job.

Yeah,

but I've also heard from a number of people that they apply all the time online and no ever gets back to them.

So what we need to be saying to them is go to jobs.

Okay.

Well,

for Jason Lee's comments, questions.

Anyone on the screen?

Legislative Pierce?

Did you have a point?

Well, I had a question that goes back to um

uh

Kim's presentation, although you know, in fairness, it it is equally um relevant.

So one of the things I'm certainly hearing a lot of are folks who are newly graduate who are having an impossible time finding jobs, parents where kids have gone to college, sometimes very expensive colleges, and have come back without without any ability to access employment, applying online to hundreds, if not more than hundreds of jobs, it's all into the void.

So that connects with your presentation and the fact that those folks are not included in the unemployment numbers is a is a big red flag, and we haven't mentioned AI and the impacts of AI on entry-level positions in a lot of the fields that folks exiting the college world may have been previously applying to.

So I my my questions are kind of twofold, and and maybe we'll go to you first and then Kim afterwards.

It was about the trades piece, the the fact that the county is working hard to improve the number of apprenticeship positions in the county.

How do we work better with the programs coming out of OCs or any other or our job fairs to make certain that people are being connected with apprenticeship opportunities and how do we keep our eyes on the numbers to know how much we move the needle and how much more we need to figure out how to move the needle on that bunch?

And then also, if you have any advice for folks who are leaving college who are having a really hard time finding work.

If I could uh answer your first question and hand it off to Kim, but um I think that um very sympathetic to anybody who's struggling to find a job in this job market, especially if you spend four years in college and you may have student debt that you're now dealing with.

Uh, but I would suggest that the individual looking for job focus on quality, not quantity.

And so they may want to meet with an uh identify a mentor or go to the career center or um possibly um the college where they attended the career service center, and they should find a coach who's going to help them and identify what they're not doing or not doing enough of so that they can figure out what gaps they need to build and address so that they become a more attractive candidate and they increase their likelihood of getting a job.

Uh, for those who are not um college graduates looking for jobs, I think the good news is that a combination of high schools that have career academies, OCs with their K through 12, as well as uh the colleges that have their own um extension centers focused on different occupations.

There's a tremendous amount of work being done currently to develop and expand career pathways so that students know what jobs are out there and what opportunities, programs, services, and resources are available to them.

And I also think that um it's very important that we all uh recognize that um there are um great programs, but you have to take the necessary steps to find out if you're eligible to enroll to attend and to uh to uh really focus on all the outcomes that are you can get in order to get a job.

I think a lot of people are not um committing themselves to the programs that are going to benefit them most, so it probably requires them to be a little more strategic in this.