ATLANTA (WXIA) -- Training Georgia's unemployed and getting them back to work gave rise in 2003 to the Georgia Works program, created by former Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond.
The program is now spreading to 10 other states, and it's about to be part of President Barack Obama's jobless benefits bill, recently passed by Congress and awaiting Obama's signature.
"More and more Georgians are becoming not just unemployed but remaining unemployed for longer and longer periods of time," Thurmond said. "Many people with strong work histories and advanced educational degrees and I knew with just providing them with an unemployment insurance check was not enough."
Nationally, the program will work as it does in Georgia. Employers will bring in trainees currently getting unemployment benefits and after eight weeks of training, participating companies can hire them.
In Georgia, the workers receive a $240 stipend in addition to weekly unemployment checks.
Since Georgia Works started, 32,000 workers have participated in the program and Thurmond says 60 percent land full time jobs within 90 days.
The national program goes a step further than Georgia by including $1 billion in federal dollars to fund skills testing for long-term unemployed workers.
"The fact that the federal government has now stepped in to provide funding to provide administrative and technical assistance, says that the big barrier that we had in Georgia and across the country of how you finance the stipends is now removed." Thurmond said.
Unemployed Georgia residents who are now receiving benefits are eligible to sign up for the Georgia Works program at any of the Labor Department's career centers across the state.