Targeted Employment – Re-Connecting Appalachia’s Disconnected Workforce: Report Launch

Tuesday, July 25th at 11 am EST

Appalachia is a region of hard workers, but too many of us who want to work are not able to find a job. Even when the unemployment rate is low, many Appalachians who want to work remain disconnected from the workforce. The result has been a long-term structural unemployment problem that has persisted for decades, with too many Appalachian adults out of the workforce entirely and unable to secure a decent paying job where they live.

Addressing these issues is how we can build an economy that respects all working people — with quality jobs and education, affordable healthcare and childcare — so people can work, take care of our families, and contribute to our communities.

A federal job subsidy program that is targeted at breaking down barriers to employment – such as improving the skills and experience of potential workers to meet current employer demands in their local labor market – and connecting them with a job could not only boost incomes and improve the livelihood of thousands of Appalachians but also give people self-esteem, a source of identity, and feel more connected to their community.

This report examines the economic conditions of Appalachia with a particular focus on Appalachian counties in four-states – Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia -that comprise the footprint of ReImagine Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley Institute. This includes describing how Appalachia has been a “region apart” from the rest of America, including its history of resource extraction and exploitation, the collapse of the steel industry, and now coal, that has led to large employment losses in the area, and how the region’s uneven development has led to chronically low rates of employment, disenfranchisement from the labor market and even loss of hope underpinning the opioid epidemic from which the Appalachian region was particularly hard hit.

SPEAKERS INCLUDED:

Moderated by Dana Kuhnline: Program Manager at ReImagine Appalachia
Ted Boettner: Senior Research at the Ohio River Valley Institute
Claire Kovach, Ph.D: Senior Research Analyst at Keystone Research Center
Algernon Austin: Director for Race and Economic Justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research: [email protected]