D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray laid down some serious chips — $2 million — on Wednesday in another bid to jumpstart hiring in the District.
At a morning news conference in Northeast, Gray laid out a plan under which the city will pay most of a worker’s salary while they are in training.
Gray said the District will pay 90 percent of a person’s wages — up to $8,000 over six months as long as they make $34 per hour or less — while they participate in a company’s training program.
That would mean the city could be supplementing the pay of people earning an annual salary as high as $70,720.
“This is another part of our plan to connect unemployed D.C. residents with jobs and make it easier for employers to hire District residents,” Gray said.
The effort is a broadening of a federal on-the-job training program that is set to expire in June.
“This is an employers’ market, so we need to ensure that unemployed District residents are trained to match the needs of employers with jobs to fill,” said Lisa Mallory, the director of the city’s Department of Employment Services. “Employers are going to save money on recruiting, screening and training costs.”
Although the city’s unemployment rate has improved in recent months, it has stubbornly remained above the national average. In December, the most recent month for which state-by-state statistics are available, District unemployment stood at 10.4 percent while the national rate was 8.5 percent. The federal government is scheduled to release new District unemployment figures on Tuesday.
