The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development has launched SkillUp New Jersey to help recently laid-off residents prepare to get back to work. SkillUp New Jersey can help workers planning to return to a former employer and also people looking to change jobs. The program offers free and unlimited access to more than 5,000 high-quality online training courses valued by many Fortune 500 companies. View a 1-minute video overview of the SkillUp New Jersey program.
The SkillUp New Jersey Program can help you acquire new skills, enhance existing skills, explore new career paths, or prepare for certification training through a web-based learning management system. The free platform offers thousands of courses covering a variety of business skills, career topics, and helps to prepare you for industry certifications.read more
Looking for your next employer? Come to the Job Fair at William Paterson University where the following industries will be represented:
Healthcare, Security, Retail & Sales, Finance, Transportation, Material Management, Government, and Manufacturing.
Thursday 12 January 2017 (Snow Date: January 13th)
9am – 1pm
1600 Valley Road
Wayne, NJ 07470
Veteran’s Assistance will be available.
PLEASE PLAN ON ARRIVING EARLY. SOME COMPANIES MAY NOT BE ABLE TO STAY UNTIL 1PM.
This week, the leaders of the SBA, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and microlender Justine PETERSEN announced the formation of the Aspire Entrepreneurship Initiative, a groundbreaking new $2.1 million partnership to expand access to entrepreneurial education and microloans for formerly incarcerated individuals, with a specific focus on those who are parents. Initial rollout for the initiative is planned for Detroit, MI, Chicago, IL, Louisville, KY and St. Louis, MO.
“Entrepreneurship and small business ownership are proven paths toward wealth creation and financial independence especially for people who might otherwise feel trapped by their circumstances” said SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet. “America remains a land of opportunity, a place where we believe in second changes for those who have paid their debt to society. Entrepreneurship can be a ladder of opportunity for citizens who have paid that debt but are still struggling to find employment after incarceration. With the training and startup tools provided through this partnership, these American citizens can finally start to rebuild their lives and restore their relationships with their families and communities.”
“At the Kellogg Foundation we know that children thrive when their families are economically secure,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “It is vital that parent returning citizens have the opportunity to create economic prosperity for their families. One path to that success is creating more opportunities for entrepreneurship by opening access to the capital and training needed for parents to become small business owners in their communities. By giving parents a second chance, we are also giving their children an opportunity to succeed.”
“At the heart of the American dream is opportunity,” stated Robert Boyle, Founder and CEO of Justine PETERSEN, “And the dynamic partnership of the SBA, W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Justine PETERSEN provides the necessary programmatic infrastructure for such opportunity to be afforded and ultimately realized. We at Justine PETERSEN are inspired and excited about bringing entrepreneurial opportunity to returning citizens and their families.”
SBA will oversee strategic planning for the pilot initiative, work with its microlending partners to make capital available for program participants, and leverage its policy research expertise to craft a comprehensive evaluation design for assessing the pilot’s effectiveness. Justine PETERSEN will deliver the intensive, cohort-based entrepreneurial education program and the Kellogg Foundation will fund the pilot initiative and provide matching revolving loan funds and evaluation support. The Kellogg Foundation will also partner with the SBA to produce a white paper summarizing the insights produced by the pilot initiative.
Background
An estimated 60 percent of formerly incarcerated individuals remain unemployed one year after their release, raising the risk of recidivism and resulting in lost lifetime earnings. This cycle has major implications for American families as nearly half of all U.S. children have at least one parent with a criminal record. In 2015, SBA expanded its Microloan Program to small business owners currently on probation or parole. This partnership expands on that policy change to give parents the opportunity to generate income and create economic prosperity for their families.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz … embodies the tactics that have eroded the ability of Democrats to once again be the party of the working class. As Democratic National Committee chair she has opened the floodgates for Big Money, brought lobbyists into the inner circle and oiled all the moving parts of the revolving door that twirls between government service and cushy jobs in the world of corporate influence.
She has played games with the party’s voter database, been accused of restricting the number of Democratic candidate debates and scheduling them at odd days and times to favor Hillary Clinton, and recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper that super delegates — strongly establishment and pro-Clinton — are necessary at the party’s convention so deserving incumbent officials and party leaders don’t have to run for delegate slots “against grassroots activists.” Let that sink in, but hold your nose against the aroma of entitlement.
But here’s just about the worst of it. Rep. Wasserman Schultz — the people’s representative, right? — has aligned herself with corporate interests out to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s effort to create national standards for the payday-lending industry, a business that in particular targets the poor. Payday loans, as Yuka Hayashi writes at The Wall Street Journal, “are quick credits of a few hundred dollars, with effective annual interest rates ranging between 300% and 500%. Loans are due in a lump sum on the borrower’s next payday, a structure that often sends people into cycles of debt by forcing them to take out new loans to repay the old ones.”
According to the nonpartisan Americans for Financial Reform, this tail-chasing cycle of “turned” loans to pay off previous loans makes up about 76 percent of the payday loan business. The Pew Charitable Trust found that in Wasserman Schultz’s home state, the average payday loan customer takes out nine such loans a year, which usually has them mired in debt for about half a year.read more
