News release, Nov. 1, 1999A

Georgia Department of Labor - Press Release
Georgia Department of
Labor
Suite 642 148 International Boulevard N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30303-1751 (404)656-3032

November 1, 1999

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PUBLIC-PRIVATE SECTOR WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE HAS SUCCESSFUL FIRST YEAR

ATLANTA -- The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL), the Department of Technical and Adult Education (DTAE) and 10 Atlanta area corporations celebrated a milestone today of a unique workforce development initiative. The state and corporate partners are working together to recruit, train and place highly-skilled customer service specialists into jobs needed to help solve the critical labor shortage in the service industries, the fastest-growing segment of metro Atlanta's job market.

The public-private partnership, formed one year ago, created the Metro-Atlanta Regional Service Industry Academy (SIA) located at 5465 Buford Highway in DeKalb County.

"I applaud our business partners who have joined us in this unique effort to train skilled workers and provide them with job opportunities after graduation," said State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. "The academy is an excellent example that the public and private sectors can work together to develop a more highly-skilled and productive workforce."

In addition to the Bank of America, which provides the facilities for the academy's headquarters and hired the entire first class of graduates, the academy's other corporate partners include: BellSouth, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Delta Airlines, Equifax, Georgia Power Company, Nextel Communications, Sprint Corporation, SunTrust Bank and Synovus Financial Corp. All of the corporate partners are committed to interviewing graduates for jobs. Additionally, some will offer training-related internships, tuition reimbursement and scholarships.

In its first year, the partnership has enrolled nearly 300 students at the academy and established high school joint-enrollment programs to train seniors for customer service jobs. The job

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Georgia Department of Labor - Press Release
placement rate for current academy graduates is approximately 95 percent.

"Graduation from SIA is not only a first step toward employment, it's the window to a lifetime of seamless, educational programs," said Dr. Ken Breeden, DTAE commissioner and top administrator of the training program.

Through its Quick Start program, DTAE operates the academy through a collaborative of metro area technical institutes. "In Atlanta, we have seven technical institutes that form the perfect regional delivery system to serve our metro Atlanta business partners," Breeden said. They include: Atlanta Technical Institute, Carroll Technical Institute, Chattahoochee Technical Institute, DeKalb Technical Institute, Gwinnett Technical Institute, Lanier Technical Institute and the academy's headquarters.

The labor department has the key responsibility for identifying promising students from its large customer base of job seekers and referring them to training at the academy. Graduates will be highly qualified to work in a wide range of industries, such as information technology, banking and finance, telecommunications, transportation and public service.

"Once people enroll and become certified customer service specialists, the labor department will make a commitment to do everything possible to ensure that they obtain the jobs they are trained for," Thurmond continued. "Those highly-skilled workers will be in great demand both now and in the future, because employment in a wide-spectrum of service-related industries has grown by 65 percent in metro Atlanta during the decade of the 1990s and is projected to be the area's fastest growing industry well into the millennium."

Students are required to take a rigorous entrance examination that evaluates their reading, grammar and math skills. They must successfully complete 154 hours of intense interactive classes at the academy. Program credit is transferable to other diploma or degree programs and is HOPE scholarship eligible.

People interested in enrolling at the academy should contact any office of the Georgia Department of Labor.

NEWS MEDIA NEEDING ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SHOULD CALL THE GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR'S OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS AT (404) 656-3032, OR THE COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE OF THE DTAE AT (404) 679-2926.

E-mail: communications@dol.state.ga.us.

FY-00-239

An Equal Opportunity Employer

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