Work Force Development Office opens in New Orleans, provides variety of employment services

A new partnership between New Orleans City Hall and several state and nonprofit agencies will soon bring employment services to the heart of eastern New Orleans.

The Office of Work Force Development will open July 28 in the top floor of the 11-story Executive Plaza at 1001 Plaza Drive,

Andrala Walker, director of the city Workforce Partnership office, said the venture is a way to reach out beyond the city's downtown One Stop location.

This is an effort to bring our services to the population areas so people can have more access to what we have to offer, she said.

The new center will be a partnership between the state Department of Labor, the non-profit New Orleans East Economic Development Foundation, the city and several other players including the Louisiana Community and Technical College System.

The city will pay the rent for the new office and contribute staff. The economic development foundation will move its staff into the office and the other partners will contribute in-kind services such as educational material and periodic staffing.

The center will offer professional services ranging from job placement and screening to training and career counseling. It is the first of three similar centers opening throughout the city in the next year or so.

New Orleans will open another work force development office in Algiers and a partnership is in the works to convert the Labor Department's unemployment office on Thalia Street in Central City into a third work force office.

We are hoping to more than double the customers we served last year from 14,000 to 40,000 or 45,000 by the end of next year, Walker said.

All centers will oversee several state programs as well as 19 federal programs ranging from unemployment insurance to welfare to student financial aid and transportation services.

Anne Keifer, executive director of the New Orleans East Economic Development Foundation, said the project came along at a good time for her group. Before this year, the foundation was supported largely by hotel/motel tax money. That money dried up when the state Legislature redirected hotel/motel tax funds to the Hornets and Saints sports franchises.

The city approached us and asked if they could put someone from work force in our office. We liked the idea and started the discussions, Keifer said. As the discussion went on, the city said whatever we do with their money had to create jobs, which posed a bit of a problem.

The foundation had primarily taken care of quality-of-life issues such as cleanup, crime prevention and land use, none of which creates jobs, Keifer said.

We then met with the board and said 'Let's change our mission to include creating jobs.' Then, when we were thinking along those lines, this all made sense, she said.

The foundation's role will be community outreach. The city staffers will take care of people who enter the center. Keifer and her staff will go to the business community to inventory need.

My part is educating the business community much in the same way I do now, she said. We will start with meetings and determine what they need and work from there.

Walker said businesses in eastern New Orleans seem receptive to the outreach so far.

When Keifer finds company openings, she brings that information back to the center. From there, city and state officials work to recruit and train to fit those needs.

This is a much more strategic approach to work force development where we are addressing actual shortages rather than training people with general skills, Walker said. Instead, we are trying to address areas we know we have shortages in such as maritime, construction, health care and even entertainment to some extent.

Walker said the new office will serve companies at all levels of the economic spectrum ranging from engineering firms to manufacturing plants.

The Workforce Investment Act opened services to everyone - engineers, college grads. It's not just for low-income workers or for the unemployed although, those people are still a target population for us, she said. We want to get the word out that we have other things to offer as well.

Enacted in 1998, the Federal Workforce Investment Act mandates that programs using federal funds must not discriminate against workers on any basis.

She used ExxonMobil as an example of a large corporation pulling out of the area. Her office can help highly skilled engineers alongside clerical workers.

The way we fit with economic development is we support the job growth happening throughout the city, Walker said. You can make as many jobs as you want, but if you don't fill them with qualified people, those jobs won't be around for very long.

The center will not limit its services to companies located in eastern New Orleans, or even Orleans Parish.

We are working toward regionalism. We recognize people live here and work elsewhere, Walker said. We won't limit our services to any geographic area. We want to do what we can to grow a healthy economy.

Walker said her staff encourages anyone looking for a job or looking to advance to a higher paying job to look at what the center has to offer.

A lot of people graduate but still haven't decided what they want to be when they grow up, she said. We have career counselors to help with that.

Keifer said consolidating state, nonprofit and city entities makes sense.

You don't want to duplicate each other's efforts, she said. It doesn't make sense to make another board just because you are taking on a new project. It makes more sense to look at the people who are already there and who have the expertise working in that community, and to partner with them. That is what we are doing here and that is why we will be successful in what we are doing.