OPA News Release: [03/12/2002]
Contact Name: Kate Whitman

H-1B Technical Skills Training Grant Awards Announced Over $23 Million Going to Local Communities to Help With Skills Training 

WASHINGTON— U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao today announced grant awards totaling more than $23 million under the H-1B Technical Skills Training grant program. The grants were awarded to local communities to provide high-level training to employed and unemployed workers for jobs in occupations where skills shortages exist.

“These grants will provide much needed skills training in high growth industries such as health services and information technology,” Chao said. “This is helping build the 21st Century workforce and is part of the administration’s commitment to keeping Americans employed in good paying jobs and our training programs targeted to occupations-in-demand.”

H-1B Technical Skills Training grants are supported by user fees paid by employers seeking high skilled foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. The goal of the training grants is to prepare Americans for these same high skill jobs, reducing the dependence on foreign labor. 

The grant recipients are:

Maricopa County Human Service Department, Phoenix, Ariz. $3,000,000 
Workforce Investment Council of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. $2,972,000 
Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, Springfield, Mass. $3,000,000 
Hennepin County Workforce Investment Board, Minneapolis, Minn. $3,000,000 
Southwest Minnesota Private Industry Council, Marshall, Minn. $3,000,000 
Workforce Investment Board of Herkimer, Madison, and Oneida Counties,
Utica, N.Y. $2,602,008 
Capital Area Workforce Development Board, Raleigh, N.C. $2,590,952 
Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, Philadelphia, Pa. $3,000,000 

For more information, please go to http://www.dol.gov/.