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In order to attract businesses, a community must have a skilled workforce; and in order to keep people in the area, they must be able to find good jobs. In midMichigan, Capital Area Michigan Works! - an agency of the Michigan Works! Association - provides a meeting ground for employers and potential employees.
"Capital Area Michigan Works! is what is called a special purpose unit of government," explained Douglas E. Stites, CEO for the organization. "That means the three counties, Eaton, Clinton and Ingham, and two cities, Lansing and East Lansing, are permitted under state law to band together for purposes of delivering programs like this. It would be economically inefficient for them each to have their own program. None of them is big enough."
Housing staff from state and local educational institutions and private nonprofit organizations, Capital Area Michigan Works! moved into a new 30,000-squarefoot service center in Lansing in April. There are also centers in Charlotte and St. Johns.
"We're really pleased," said Stites. "At our old service center, we used to service 40 to 50 people a day. Sometimes, now, we're serving 600. We also have 14 agencies here and another 70 staff from all of those agencies. [Capital Area Michigan Works!] is really an umbrella name."
Through all of its participating organizations, Capital Area Michigan Works! provides a number of services for the community.
"The first thing we do effectively is help connect people seeking work and employers seeking people," said Stites. "We use a statewide Internet-based system. We probably have 12,000 to 13,000 resumes for the three counties at any given time. Statewide, there are probably 40,000 to 50,000 job orders. The statewide system adds in 500 new job orders per day. There is no eligibility or cost to use [our resource] area to create a resume, to put your resume online or to search the job orders. We have computers, photocopiers, fax machines and telephones and information about workforce development. People can come in, and we'll show them how it works. You don't have to sign up for it, and it's all free."
There are also other programs, such as work readiness and GED...