Sourcing solution promotes Rhode Island jobs

Posted on November 8, 2016

A new sourcing solution is connecting job seekers to Rhode Island jobs.

Skills for Rhode Island’s Future is a public-private partnership that meets the hiring needs of employers by offering customized talent sourcing solutions to place qualified long-term unemployed and underemployed candidates into available positions.

State officials credited the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, which along with the Department of Labor and Training (DLT), is collaborating with Skills for RI’s Future. They thanked employers that have already committed to consider, recruit, and hire applicants who have been unemployed longer than six months including event host Bank of America, CVS Health, and General Dynamics Electric Boat — and they encouraged other employers to join them in making this commitment.

The more employers that sign up, the more unemployed Rhode Islanders will get back to work and onto promising career pathways at quality companies. The importance of “buy in” was made clear when Skills for Rhode Island’s Future announced that already, RI employers have committed to hire 150 long-term unemployed workers through this new sourcing connection. “The best words I can hear are ‘I got the job!’ — I want every Rhode Islander to be able to say that,” Raimondo said. “And the best way to make this a reality is to prepare job seekers for work that actually exists. This is the essence of ‘demand-driven’ programs like Real Jobs RI, TechHire RI, and P-TECH. Now, with the launch of Skills for Rhode Island’s Future, we will have that missing link to make the direct connection between the workers we are training and the businesses that are hiring. I’m excited to keep the momentum going, and want to thank the Congressional Delegation for their support in securing funding to bring this initiative to Rhode Island.”

Skills for RI’s Future (SRIF) is based after the successful model created by Skills for Chicagoland’s Future, a nationally recognized workforce intermediary that has shown great success in getting the unemployed back to work. Rhode Island is the first statewide launch of this model, and the first expansion of the initiative outside of Chicago. The Congressional Delegation helped obtain a $5.25-million Sector Partnership-National Emergency Grant, of which $1.25 million is funding Skills for RI’s Future. The US Department of Labor announced this award in June 2015.