Workers needing job training or help in finding work are finding help on Kaua’i through the island’s unique Workwise program. The program is overseen by the county’s Office of Economic Development, and is bringing together federal, state, and county governments,
Workers needing job training or help in finding work are finding help on Kaua’i through the island’s unique Workwise program.
The program is overseen by the county’s Office of Economic Development, and is bringing together federal, state, and county governments, non-profit organizations and the private sector in an effort to help Kaua’i workers.
The goal of the project is to get more Kaua’i residents to work, while providing training that potential employers on Kaua’i say they need, and to improve the work skills of already employed workers.
The job training and placement outreach is also helping displaced sugar plantation workers who lost their jobs following the closings of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i’s plantations at Lihu’e and Kekaha.
The program is transforming the state employment office, and summertime youth job training programs held in the past at Kaua’i Community College, by linking the traditional sources of job training on the island with a variety of other agencies, and directly with employers.
The program is the result of federal job training legislation passed in 1998.
In a video presentation created for the project employers from major resort hotels and other Kaua’i businesses praise the program and say they have hired workers trained or placed through Workwise
The project began in 1999, said Office of Economic Development director Gini Kapali. Now that Workwise is fully functional it is being widely marketed to island employers and workers.
That’s the purpose of three Workwise meetings, with one at Princeville last week, one in Lihu’e, and one set for the Westside on Thursday.
At the Lihu’e meeting held Tuesday at the Radission Kaua’i Beach Resort, former state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations director Lorraine Akiba spoke before a gathering of about 100 business owners, human resource managers from large and medium size Kaua’i businesses and state and county workers involved in the job training program.
Mayor Maryanne Kusaka said the program is the most successful of similar job training programs also set up on other Hawaiian islands.
The marketing campaign for Workwise was created by Tsunami Marketing of Koloa.
On the Web: www.WorkWiseKauai.com
