Magic Pot of Jobs

A new statewide initiative will help to create more Los Angeles County jobs.

During his State of the State speech earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled the new California Jobs Initiative, a $500 million package that could train up to 140,000 workers and help create 100,000 new jobs.

The California Employment Training Panel will partner with community colleges and other workforce development organizations to deliver training focused on green jobs and other key industries that are a priority, including: manufacturing, goods movement, biotechnology, information technology services, multimedia, healthcare and construction.

The initiative will provide up to $200 million to employers to pay for training new employees or retraining existing employees for new jobs. The ETP will reimburse employers for training expenditures after the employee has been gainfully employed for three months, with the average reimbursement for each employee at about $1,400.

The additional $300 million will be reimbursed to employers who train and employ out-of-work California residents. Employers will receive $3,000 for each unemployed worker who completes ETP training and stays on the job for nine months.

The funding, which is equivalent to the state paying half the payroll tax for each new employee for one year, will be funded by a loan from the Unemployment Compensation Disability Fund, which currently has a surplus sufficient to fund the program.

The initiative will include five bills for legislative approval, which, aside from training workers and creating jobs, will include:

• Streamlining regulations to get shovels in the ground, thus creating jobs and spurring economic activity – The initiative will grant the California Business, Transportation & Housing Agency the right to select a specified number of projects with completed environmental impact reviews to be approved and not subject to legal challenge in an effort to expedite the groundbreaking process and create jobs.
• Extending the home buyer tax credit to encourage home ownership – To encourage residents to purchase homes, an extension and expansion to the $10,000 Tax Credit for New Home Purchases will be proposed to include the purchase of existing homes in addition to new residences for first-time home buyers, until $200 million in tax credits have been granted. Under the proposal, the buyer must not be a dependent and must not be purchasing a home that belongs to a relative.
• Eliminating sales taxes on green tech manufacturing equipment to increase investment in California’s fastest-growing economy – The initiative will continue to support a sales tax exemption on the purchase of manufacturing equipment for advanced transportation, renewable energy and other clean technology projects by working with the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority
• Eliminating frivolous lawsuits that punish California’s small businesses – The initiative will propose a series of changes to regulations governing class action law suits and products liability suits, as well as seek to cap punitive damage awards.

Tags: Los Angeles County jobs

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Job Search, Los Angeles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.