Economic Stimulus Package Provides Job Training for Seniors

More seniors across the state will be getting job training thanks to the economic stimulus package. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

The Senior Community Service Employment Program provides paid job training for low income Mississippi seniors ages 55 and older. The additional funding from the stimulus package will allow for about half of the Area Agencies on Aging in the state to provide additional slots for seniors to receive a wide variety of training in fields such as clerical, nutrition, and custodial. Shelly Battista who coordinates the job training for 15 counties in Southern Mississippi says the additional 300,000 dollars her district will receive through the stimulus package will provide 34 much needed additional slots,

“With the current economy many of our senior citizens who would like to retire just aren’t able to, you know prices are going up.”

Chuck Stanton is standing over a pile of old floor plans at the Biloxi library’s History and Genealogy Department, where he is employed through the senior training program. Stanton says there is a great need for seniors to be given the opportunity to learn how to do something new,

“A lot of them just didn’t have any training at all in their old jobs that could be applied to today’s needs in the employment field.”

For many seniors just the training provided on how to operate a computer will make their ability to find permanent employment all the more possible. Battista says that’s the real goal of the program, to be the bridge for these seniors to have the opportunity to get back into the workforce.