BURBANK : $1.6 Million OKd for Jobs Program

An agency that helps former Lockheed employees and other defense industry workers who have lost their jobs will receive a $1.6-million state grant to continue putting people back to work.

Gov. Pete Wilson approved the grant--which comes from the state’s share of federal Job Training Partnership Act funds--on Friday for the Verdugo Private Industry Council. The money will support career counseling, job assessment testing, job placement assistance and training programs for the next 18 months, said Sandra Burton, a senior analyst with the council.

“The challenge for us has been to find a wide range of jobs for the dislocated workers to enter,” Burton said. “One thing we’ve learned is that no great number of people can be retrained in any one thing at the same time, or you begin to find a shortage of jobs.”

The local Private Industry Council was formed in the early 1980s under the federal job-training program, but it has become flooded with clients since the late 1980s when Lockheed Corp., which once employed 13,000 workers at its Burbank plant, began a series of layoffs and eventually closed that facility.

In 1990, the council opened the Verdugo Center for Jobs and Retraining in Burbank. That center has assisted aerospace and defense workers from all echelons--from office workers to machinists to engineers--in finding new jobs.

At first, the center tries to help clients find jobs in their career field, but if such positions are scarce, it offers training in a variety of different career areas, ranging from transportation to health care.

Another major part of its program is personal counseling for those who suffer emotionally from the recession’s effects, Burton said.

“It’s very common for a person to become depressed and angry in the wake of a layoff and the continued rejections involved in a job search,” she said. “But it’s very important to keep a good state of mental health to keep that search going and to present a good impression to potential employers.”