Los Angeles County agency uses federal stimulus money to create jobs

The White House is holding a summit today with business leaders. The topic: job creation. The Obama administration’s stimulus package set aside hundreds of millions of dollars to pay people to work in public agencies and private companies and non-profits. In Los Angeles County, the South Bay Workforce Investment Board is in charge of making that happen.

For years, the Investment Board has moved people from welfare to jobs in the non-profit and public sectors. Program Coordinator Tracy Atkins says the private business part is new.

"There are businesses that have had to downsize in the past or businesses that were stable yesterday and are no longer stable today and need help," she says. "We can help them. We’ve got workers to help meet their needs."

The South Bay Workforce Investment Board has 160 million federal stimulus dollars to place 10,000 workers in transitional subsidized jobs in L.A. County. But the Board only has a year to get businesses to sign on and hire. It’s about a quarter of the way to its goal to get more businesses to sign on.

On the assembly floor at Pacific Lock in Valencia, the opportunity to bring on workers someone else would pay came right on time. The family business won a contract earlier this year to make padlocks for the military. President Greg Waugh says to meet the need, Pacific Lock had to expand from seven employees to about 45.

"From a good feeling perspective, knowing that we’re using taxpayer money to give people an opportunity to get their lives back on track, it does make us feel good as a family," says Waugh.

Pacific Lock has brought on about 20 transitional subsidized employees like LaTanya Taylor, who’s now earning $10 an hour stacking together padlock parts. Taylor believes the stimulus program has been very successful

"It put a lot of people back to work who were pretty much at the bottom and not knowing what’s gonna happen and how they’re gonna pay that next bill," she says. "People had to downsize, so I was pretty fortunate."

The 48-year-old single mom from Santa Clarita had to downsize her life about a year ago when she lost her job as a call center operator. She was unemployed for 6 months, and moved in with her daughter. Now, Taylor is learning a new business – and hopes one day to put her clerical skills to work in Pacific Lock’s front office.

"I plan on staying, and as long this company has me, this is where I’ll be," she says with a giggle.

She’s sitting next to her boss, Greg Waugh, and has touched on a key question in his padlock business: will he hire her once the government stops paying her wages? Waugh points out that Taylor was one of five finalists for a permanent position that opened up last week.

"We told each of them that we were hoping to keep them all on board," says Waugh. "We, like any private business, we need to grow, we need to get more opportunities out there. If we can do that then I can do my job as president of the company and get more jobs, and then I can bring more people on permanently."

Waugh believes the more workers he adds, the more padlocks the government will ask him to make. It’s a cycle, he says.

The South Bay Workforce Investment Board says in the past, about 70 percent of the people it placed in transitional jobs went on to permanent employment somewhere. To get more businesses to take advantage of this stimulus program, it’s put Dustin Stevenson in charge of outreach. He makes presentations to anyone – CEOs, chambers of commerce, arts groups – anyone who needs workers now.

"A lot of people have heard how the stimulus money is not really getting down to Main Street and it’s a trickle down approach at best," says Stevenson. "This program is the exact opposite of that. It’s from the ground up."