Ohio gets grant to ease DHL jobs loss
Friday, November 21, 2008
The U.S. Department of Labor has approved a $3.87 million grant to pay for job-retraining services for employees of DHL's U.S. freight hub at Wilmington who will lose their jobs when DHL shifts that work to United Parcel Service, Ohio officials said Thursday, Nov. 20.
The money from what is called a national emergency grant could be available to eligible employees in the next two to three weeks through county employment service offices or "transition centers" across southwest Ohio, state officials said.
"These are critical funds at a critical time," Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said. "Having said that, there's still much more that needs to be done."
The state estimates that at least $6 million will ultimately be required to cover those needs. So the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services will apply for additional funding for the DHL hub employees as more 60-day advance notifications of layoffs are issued, officials said.
The department will soon file a request for similar funding in behalf of employees who will lose their jobs in December when General Motors Corp. closes its Moraine sport utility vehicle assembly plant, department spokesman Dennis Evans said. The amount that will be requested for the GM workers is still being determined, Evans said.
State officials and Ohio's congressional delegation had been lobbying the Labor Department since this summer to make the funding available for Wilmington-area workers. It applies to workers in a 16-county area from Dayton east to Chillicothe and south to the Ohio River and Cincinnati, since DHL's Wilmington hub draws employees from the entire region.
The Labor Department awards the money to expand job-skills training for workers who lose jobs at a major regional employer.
DHL said on Nov. 10 that it will end its point-to-point express package deliveries within the United States after Jan. 30, and shut down its ground freight network, to concentrate on its international deliveries between U.S. and foreign cities.
DHL is still trying to negotiate an agreement, that the company first called for in May, to hire UPS to handle all sorting and flying of DHL's U.S. express cargo. That will shift the work to the UPS hub at Louisville, Ky., and wipe out at least 7,000 remaining jobs at DHL's Wilmington hub, the region's largest employer. ABX Air, which runs the hub under contract to DHL, has already eliminated more than 1,300 jobs since May in response to DHL's cutbacks.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or
jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.
