Five of the ten trainees, some of them veterans, are planning to walk into new jobs within the next few days.

“This program is a model and just the first of many such programs for New Jersey that start with employer needs and align our training dollars and programs to connect New Jersey’s unemployed job-seekers with real skills from real employers for real jobs,” said Mary Ellen Clark, Assistant Commissioner of the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development (LWD).

The LWD launched the training program with the New Jersey Community College Consortium for Workforce and Economic Development and the New Jersey Business and Industry Association (NJBIA) Manufacturers Network.  The program has become a model for new training initiatives that focus on providing job-seekers with the skills employers in New Jersey’s major industry clusters have identified as important to their businesses.

The goal is to give job-seekers the training that will directly link them to jobs already available inside New Jersey’s major industries. The “Fabricated Metal Product Training” program prepared participants for careers in the Garden State’s metal product manufacturing industry.

“Through a collaboration of partnerships that included the Community College Consortium, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association and the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, we’ve been able to bring the nexus of employers and a trained workforce together,” said Dr. Peter B. Contini, Executive Director of the New Jersey Community College Consortium for Workforce & Economic Development.

The graduation ceremony was conducted at the College Center on the Edison campus of the Middlesex County College, where two program graduates gave emotional speeches about the program changing their lives.

Graduate Cory Fisco described the program as the “future of education,” praising the work of Instructor Steve Corbo and telling the audience the program was far beyond what he anticipated. Graduate Lawrence Becker, who will begin a new job on July 9, said the program restored the self-confidence of many graduates.

“As any instructor, I don’t think there is any greater satisfaction than to pass on knowledge to those eager to learn it,” Corbo told the audience.

The LWD is in the process of issuing additional funding for similar programs that will train job-seekers with key skills identified by employers in the state’s major industry sectors.