Darlene Hooley: “Right now Oregon has 7.6 percent unemployment, the highest in the Nation. In March of this year food and transportation…”

“Right now Oregon has 7.6 percent unemployment, the highest in the Nation. In March of this year food and transportation lost manufacturing jobs, 800 jobs. These hardworking men and women are not statistics. They are real people with real lives and families, and right now they are facing the prospects of not having enough money to put food on the table, and they lost their jobs through no fault of their own. We should not cut the very initiatives that help them retain these new jobs that will pay them decent wages and offer them health benefits. The Dislocated Worker Program of the Workforce Investment Act is critical to making sure our States have the resources to keep dislocated workers from falling through the cracks, and it is imperative that we make sure it remains a separate program because it is a training program and its needs are very different from the other two programs with which it is being combined. I have put forth an amendment with the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) that would have addressed this issue and ensure that those who are laid off can get the assistance they need to get back into the workforce.”