For Immediate Release
SACRAMENTO – Starting January 1, the opportunities to obtain job training while earning a paycheck can grow for jobseekers who face barriers to employment, under legislation by Senator Josh Becker that Governor Newsom signed Wednesday (Sept. 22).
“These ‘earn-and-learn’ opportunities can radically transform the lives of people who are all too often miscast as being unemployable,” said Senator Becker, D-Peninsula. I’m grateful to the Governor for signing Senate Bill 779 and my legislative colleagues for their unstinting bipartisan support of my bill. Special thanks go to the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) and the San Francisco Jewish Vocational Service for their partnership on this bill.”
SB 779 helps expand “earn and learn” opportunities for veterans, the unhoused, people exiting the justice system, and others who face barriers to joining the workforce by adding two socially purposed work models to the types of programs that are eligible for “earn and learn” funding consideration in California. The models being added are employment social enterprises, called ESEs, and worker cooperatives that provide evidence-based job and life skills training to individuals with barriers to employment.
While SB 779 does not mandate funding, “it recognizes the importance of ESEs and worker co-ops to our transitioning workforce and encourages Labor Workforce Development boards to partner with these entities when funding earn and learn’ programs,” Senator Becker said. “Offering skills training and employment together is one of the best ways to enable successful returns to the workforce and strengthen our economy long-term.”
Writing to request that the Governor sign SB 779, Senator Becker noted that the Future of Work Commission’s final recommendations call for the creation of an inclusive and equitable economy and propose that by 2030, the State extend financial and technical assistance to ESEs. Nearly 80% of ESE employees are justice-impacted and 68% are Black or Latinx, the senator also wrote. “Innovative work models, like ESEs and worker cooperatives, acknowledge that subsidized and transitional employment are needed to address barriers to employment, especially as workers enter the workforce for the first time and/or migrate to new opportunities in the technology, online marketing, and health care sectors that require digital skills.”
Bill partners REDF and JVS voiced their strong support from the start.
“ESEs help government spending go further while improving lives and strengthening families and communities,” REDF President and CEO Carla Javits wrote in a letter in support of SB 779 in March. “Independent research verifies that the on-the-job experience that ESEs provide their employees more than doubles job retention and significantly increases wages and total incomes. Nationally, this is a vibrant, growing field, and nonprofit ESEs are joined by for-profit companies increasingly establishing ‘second chance’ hiring and related initiatives.”
JVS CEO Lisa Countryman-Quiroz pointed out that job training efforts hold even greater significance as California emerges from the pandemic. SB 779 supports “job training efforts as the state recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic by modernizing the existing workforce structures and meeting the needs of those overcoming workforce barriers,” she wrote in JVS’s support letter. “At the federal and state levels, there is a growing need to address the pandemic’s effects. New models that prioritize employing individuals who are overcoming barriers to work and recognize emerging models of work within the gig economy, provide benefits and stability for all workers, and offer entrepreneurial opportunities.”
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Media Contact: Leslie Guevarra, leslie.guevarra@sen.ca.gov, 415-298-3404