plus 1, Company awards grants to nonprofit organizations to help underserved populations find jobs. - Microsoft Presspass |
| Posted: 03 Feb 2011 06:16 AM PST REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 3, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that it is awarding more than $5 million in cash and up to $10 million in software over the next two years to 12 nonprofits that offer technology skills training and job placement services to local communities in the United States. In today's technology-driven economy, finding a job without strong technology skills and during a tough economic downturn can be extremely difficult. To help ease this burden, through its Elevate America community initiative, Microsoft is partnering with nonprofit organizations that provide technology access and skills training in their local communities to help people find employment. The company is placing a special focus on underserved communities, including women and young workers (ages 18–25) who have greater barriers to employment and re-employment than the broader population. Women are often at a disproportionate disadvantage in the work force. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, almost 60 percent of all low-wage workers are female compared with 44 percent of higher wage workers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also notes women's re-employment rate is roughly 6 percent lower than men's. In addition, young workers also see a disproportionate disadvantage in the work force as compared with the broader population. According to the Economic Policy Institute, young adults represent 13.5 percent of the work force but account for 26.4 percent of unemployed workers.* These grants will help fund a comprehensive set of resources to help people be successful in today's workplace, including career counseling, technology skills training, job placement, and additional support services such as childcare and transportation. The following organizations were selected through a competitive funding process to receive the cash and in-kind grants:
Through these grants, Microsoft expects to reach more than 16,000 people in the next two years. The organizations selected have demonstrated how their approach to providing people with technology and job training resources can be scaled at the end of the two years, with the goal of creating replicable models to expand to additional communities. "Too many Americans don't have the technology skills that many jobs today require," said Pamela Passman, corporate vice president of Global Corporate Affairs at Microsoft. "Our grant recipient organizations have demonstrated how they can reach some of the most underserved people in our society, and we're honored to partner with them to provide training and job support to the people that need it most." Microsoft will also offer software donations to each of the 300 organizations that applied to the Elevate America community initiative grant process to recognize and support the important work they are doing to help people across the country find jobs. "Microsoft and its Elevate America program have enabled TransAccess to greatly increase our ability to help youth and adults with disabilities gain access to technology, employment preparation and life skills," said Maria Nicolacoudis, executive director, TransAccess. "Microsoft's support and leadership has made a direct and meaningful impact to help people with disabilities in our community successfully graduate from high school and college and go on to attain meaningful careers and a lifetime of independence." Since 2003, Microsoft has been committed to providing technology skills training to people across the country through its Microsoft Unlimited Potential program, which includes Elevate America. In partnership with thousands of nonprofit organizations, the company has reached more than 27 million people. More information on Elevate America is available at http://www.microsoft.com/ElevateAmerica. Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. * "The Kids Aren't Alright — A Labor Market Analysis of Young Workers," Economic Policy Institute, http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp258 Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career curve: Office worker to bus driver - msnbc.com Posted: 03 Feb 2011 03:10 AM PST WESTMINSTER Pay day finds Phil Ortiz at his kitchen table, his wife's laptop in front of him, a calculator and calendar handy. He's on his mid-day break from his new job and the money that just entered his bank account is about to move out, covering the many notices he's accumulated. "My stack of bills was this high two months ago," Ortiz says, making a five-inch gap with his hands. "I'm slowly getting caught up." Ortiz, 46, is one of the few lucky ones who landed a job recently. Well, "lucky" might be a relative term here. An assistant estimator for a commercial construction contractor, Ortiz lost his job in the summer of 2009. He searched for work for months, only to be frustrated by the impossible job market. A practical and hard-working guy, Ortiz finally did what he had only joked about before. He went to truck-driving school and ultimately earned his commercial drivers licenses. He landed a job with an OCTA subcontractor and has been driving a bus since May. He works 37.5 hours a week, with a daily five-hour break between morning and evening shifts. State unemployment figures show that some jobs are being added in Orange County, but that the recovery is still very slow. What the stats don't reveal are the kind of jobs some are landing and the low pay that goes along with them. Ortiz earns just $17.98 more in each two-week check than he received with unemployment benefits. That's why this recent Friday is the first day this week that he drove home during his break. He can't afford to put gas in his Volkswagen Beetle. "That's how tight it is," he says. We've been following Ortiz since Labor Day 2009, when we found him at a job fair in Costa Mesa. He had just been laid off from his third job -- yes, the third job he'd ever held since coming out of the National Guard at 18. He was still optimistic, as he had always been able to find a good job. He loved working outside, and thought perhaps he could get something like he used to do, as an irrigation specialist at the Irvine School District. Try as he might, searching online job postings and attending job fairs, he couldn't find anything, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit in California. He signed up for training and counseling at the Orange County One Stop Center, an outreach service to job-seekers run by the state unemployment agency, which he found helpful. By his sixth month of joblessness in December, Ortiz had lost hope and the pessimism could be heard in his voice. That's when he began to joke that he was so desperate that he may have to go to truck-driving school. Labor Day 2010 found Ortiz employed, having completed school and working at MV Transportation, an OCTA subcontractor. He started with a 34-hour workweek, working the split shift to cover two different routes in the morning and evening. Thanks to unemployment checks and his wife's job as a medical diagnostic center in Newport Beach, Ortiz has been able to hang on to his four-bedroom Westminster home, which he bought four years ago for $530,000. But the tight squeeze required to make the mortgage each month burst six months ago, when his property taxes went up and the bank added late fees. Those adjustments put Ortiz $300 over budget. "That's when I threw my hands up," Ortiz said, signaling surrender. "I said, 'I need to talk to a lawyer.'" Ortiz's situation is not unusual. A USA TODAY-Gallup poll released Jan. 27 showed that 21 percent of the underemployed have fallen behind in paying bills or even face bankruptcy, compared with 26 percent of the unemployed. Ortiz hired a Sherman Oaks lawyer, who is working on a loan modification. In the final approval stages now, Ortiz has been able to miss a few payments, using the freed-up cash to pay down other bills, such as a note he has on the new windows he put in the house a couple years ago. But he finds this ironic, since he had worked so hard to scrimp together his mortgage each month, trying to work with the bank, staying in touch with them and attempting to work out a new payment plan. "As soon as I started missing the payments, boom! I started getting the letters (of assistance)," he said. His lawyer is optimistic that he will get the new loan, which will be a fixed-rate 40-year agreement with a lower monthly mortgage. He laughs when he recounts how the mortgage company checked his Social Security records to see how much he'd be making when he retires, as that's how long he'll be paying on the house. But that's OK, because this house means something more than just shelter to Ortiz. His mother, who lives in Texas, helped him with a down payment. She is sick now, and her only son will need to be the one "trying to keep everything together for the family," he said. "If I lose this house, all her dream is gone. I'd be OK, but if she passes away and I lost the house....," he stopped, his eyes welled up, and he shook his head. Ortiz hangs up with the owner of the window company, promising him another $50 payment this month. He gets up from the table and walks over to the counter, where the notepad with his budget numbers sits beside the microwave. There are just a couple envelopes there now, where the five-inch stack of bills used to sit. He likes his new job and enjoys the regular riders on his routes. He gets up at 3:45 a.m., arrives at work in Irvine to sign on at 4:50 a.m., then drives Route 188 from Laguna Hills through Lake Forest to Irvine. He signs off at 9:45 a.m., then clocks back in at 3:24 p.m. to drive the 794A from Costa Mesa to Corona and back on the evening route. Ortiz is happy with the three raises he's received since starting last May and hopes to get another in July. It's not as stressful as his construction job, when he suffered a knot in the back of his neck from all his worries. First thing he does every morning is step outside. "I can smell the ocean. I love that ocean smell and I love the quiet and peacefulness before the world wakes up," he says. "I see the sun come up and I see the sun go down." Gone now are his discussions with his wife about selling the place and trying to get a condo. His lawyer told him that the final approval on the loan modification will come any day. Ortiz is hopeful again, but anxious, wanting the new loan approval done yesterday. He's circumspect, too. Life is much different from his days in the construction business, when he was pulling down $16 an hour and spending time fishing on the weekends. "What do they say? 'The American Dream' is diminishing," he says. "But if I can get this done, I'll be OK." Contact the writer: plowe@ocregister.com or 714-796-7969 This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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