The state is offering more unemployment information sessions and now a job fair for laid-off workers from IBM and other Vermont businesses. All events will be held at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in South Burlington.
The Rapid Response unemployment information sessions are scheduled back-to-back for Thursday: two morning sessions from 9 to 10:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. to noon. Workshops will include resume writing, interviewing skills and information on financial restructuring after a layoff, according to a news release from the Vermont Department of Labor.
An Employer and Training Provider Job Fair is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday. A list of employers planning to attend was not available as of publication time; booths will include employers, training service providers, financial advisers and health care program representatives.
“The Job Fair on July 15th is a ‘meet and greet’ opportunity,” Labor Commissioner Annie Noonan wrote in the news release. “(It) may open doors to interviews and job-placement connections that might otherwise be difficult to make. … We want to bring together job seekers and the resources they will need to re-enter the work force,” she said.
The events are designed for workers laid off from IBM’s computer chip and hardware plant in Essex Junction in June, but they’re open to any displaced workers and job seekers.
Speculation continues on the number of IBM workers displaced by the company’s global reorganization. IBM stopped releasing employment specifics in 2010, citing competitive reasons. Alliance@IBM, an unofficial union for the at-will employees, has counted 3,054 North American “resource actions,” as the layoffs are called internally. The state’s best guess, based on attendance at prior Rapid Response sessions, exceeds 300.
The Department of Labor is not permitted to release the total number of employees at the plant, due to federal confidentiality requirements of unemployment insurance laws, Noonan has said. She confirmed, however, that more than 4,000 workers are employed at the Essex Junction facility. It’s been surpassed by Fletcher Allen Health Care, with about 7,100 employees, as the largest private employer in Vermont, according to The Associated Press.
Mid-July will bring more clarity on the number of layoffs issued. Most workers have reported to the state though that July 12 will be their last day on the job. Vermont’s Employment Security Board rules require, in part, that employers notify the Department of Labor within 24 hours when 25 or more employees are “separated” from their jobs.
Meanwhile, the state is awaiting a response from the U.S. Department of Labor on its IBM petition under the federal Trade Adjustment Act, through which the impact of foreign trade on American jobs is investigated.
“We have received information from IBM displaced workers and others that design, production, (and) logistical operations are being out-sourced to foreign facilities,” the petition reads. No additional information or supporting documents were filed. The petition, dated June 21, states that as many as 500 layoffs may be pending.
If the layoff is certified as having been caused in some way by international trade, assistance beyond what is offered by the state would be made available to the laid-off IBM workers. That includes “job training, income support, job search and relocation allowances, the opportunity for a tax credit to help pay the costs of health insurance, and a wage supplement to certain reemployed trade-affected workers 50 years of age and older,” according to the TAA website.
The rate of response for TAA petitions varies, but a determination on the cause of the IBM layoff could be made before the end of July.
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