Fort Wayne Unemployment upward trend

The Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership member Mark Becker Becker, former Deputy Mayor of the City of Fort Wayne is the executive director of the Northeast Indiana Foundation a component of the multi-counties partnership suggest in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette that the downward trend of unemployment in Indiana is not so bad.

“In a region that has such a high dependence on manufacturing, we came through the year relatively well,” said Mark Becker, executive director of the Northeast Indiana Foundation, a part of the regional partnership.

It seems a surge of hiring came at the end of the year to outset jobs losses in 2009 that still outpaced 2008. This comes from a study commissioned by the group, conduct by the Community Research Insitute at Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne conducted by another former City of Fort Wayner staffer, John Stafford.

The [“Targeted Industry and Manufacturing Business Dynamics Report 2009] noted that twice as many businesses closed in 2009 as in 2008. In 2009, 42companies closed, which involved the loss of 3,686 jobs. In 2008, 21 closed with 1,928 jobs lost. The job cuts that the report termed “downsizings” caused the loss of 1,722 jobs in 23 reported events – about a 40 percent increase over 2008, when 18 downsizings cost 1,206 jobs.

, as reported by Bob Caylor.

According to the United Bureau of Labor Statistics Data, in 2008 Fort Wayne unemployment rank was 5.8%. By the end of 2009, the preliminary unemployment rank had almost doubled to 10.1%. Gary, Indiana a ghost town of manufacturing jobs, unemployment rank in 2008 was only .8% less and in 2009 outpaced Fort Wayne by a mire .7%.

Fort Wayne is not producing jobs to maintain its community. For example, checking out the numbers in the manufacturing area gives us some indication of our production level. The number of folks in the thousands working in Fort Wayne manufacturing industy, the hope of Indiana, went from 35.7 to 30.3 and is continuing its downward trend at 29.7 as of February, 2010, according to the BLS.

Just tell me our we the community can turn this unemployment trend around.

Bureau of Labor goes live April 2, 2010 Web Chat

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is introducing a new way for you to learn about [ its] data and reports! Join [ them ] on Friday, April 2, 2010 from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. EDT, for the Bureau's first live Web chat. BLS subject matter experts will take your questions on national employment and unemployment data, with a particular focus on the figures for March that will be released that morning at 8:30 a.m. EDT. We will answer as many questions as possible during the allotted time. To join the discussion on the morning of April 2, go to www.bls.gov/chat. Questions also can be submitted in advance through that link. We look forward to talking to you!

Source: United States Bureau of Labor


Date: Friday, April 02, 2010 Time: 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. EDT

This BLS Live Event allows you to ask our experts about the current event. You may ask your questions during the event on this page or ahead of time by clicking here to use their form

Indiana: I GET IT

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report list Puerto Rico, Michigan and Nevada having the highest unemployment rate during the month of February. These states found themselves in the double digit, 16%, 14% and 13%. This may have given Indiana a moment to give a sigh of relief coming under 10%.

Indiana weighed in at 9.8 % just above the national average of 9.7%. However, in some counties in Indiana, such as Allen County, unemployment rates have surpassed the U.S. average at 11%. Temporary workers for the United States Census Bureau may have reduced the number of unemployed in the area is one reason suggested as to why Allen County numbers are not higher.

But that's not the only bad news for Indiana unemployed workers. Indiana is borrowing money to provide unemployment benefits to its Hoosiers. It was just seven years ago, that Indiana had $1.4 Billion dollars in its trust for unemployment. But, it is all gone. This means the State of Indiana unemployment reserve was depleted in 2008.

However, Indiana DWD has received received a $6 million grant from the US Department of Labor to provide green job training.
The grant will fund "Indiana's Green Energy Technology Instruction and Training" (I

GET IT). The statewide program will provide skills training and on-the-job experience in the green energy sector to over 2,100 dislocated autoworkers, unemployed Hoosiers, out-of-school youth, and adults with barriers to employment. Additionally, the program will establish an Advanced Energy Training Center to facilitate the state's transition to a green economy. Details about the training programs and application process will be announced this spring.

Allen county is eligible for the training for those counties impacted by automotive restructing.

The Indiana Department of Workforce Development partnered in this grant proposal with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), Ivy Tech Community College, Southeastern Indiana Small Business Development Center and the American StructurePoint, Inc.

The DOL has released more grant money to communities to get workers back to work. $1.8 million in funding is available to Women in Apprenticeship and Non-traditional Occupations.

Eligible applicants include community-based organizations that form a consortium with at least one Registered Apprenticeship program sponsor in targeted industries. Organizations must demonstrate their experience in either directly providing or securing job training services, and providing placement and support services to women. Registered Apprenticeship programs will be responsible for placing women in employment through apprenticeship programs in the targeted industries.

Fort Wayne unwittingly appears to be headed in the direction of Detroit or Gary, Indiana. So what does that means for those African-Americans living in the core of the city of Fort Wayne?

If the unemployment rate is at 11% for the city, more than likely the unemployment rank for African-Americans is at least 33%. This is even worse news for young AFrican-Americans living in the city.

We must start a non-profit for creating employment for our young folks, because these other folks are not looking out for their future. I GET IT but does our African-American leadership get it?

Southern Poverty Law Center Morris Dees will visit the poverty pimp city of Fort Wayne, Indiana

The African/African-American Histocial Society Museum will celebrate its 10th anniversary. 10th Anniversary African/African American Historical Museum Celebration, Civil Rights: “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See." The keynote speaker will be Morris Dees(read more about Dees below).

The event is scheduled for April 16, 2010 at the Grand Wayne Center. April 16 was the date the late Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. penned the now famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". King's letter addressed the raced white community attempt to justify his arrest after marching in the city. In 1963, King was arrested in what he called, "..the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States." King would be assassinated five years later on April 4, 1968.

Three years later, Alabama born Morris Dees became the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Dees co-founded the SPLC in 1971 following a successful business and law career. He started a direct mail sales company specializing in book publishing while still a student at the University of Alabama, where he also obtained a law degree. After launching a law practice in Montgomery in 1960, he won a series of groundbreaking civil rights cases that helped integrate government and public institutions. He also served as finance director for former President Jimmy Carter’s campaign in 1976 and for Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern in 1972.

Known for his innovative lawsuits that crippled some of America’s most notorious white supremacist hate groups, he has received more than 20 honorary degrees and numerous awards. Those include Trial Lawyer of the Year from Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award from the National Education Association. He was named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal in 2006. In addition, the University of Alabama Law School and the New York law firm Skadden, Arps jointly created the annual Morris Dees Justice Award to honor a lawyer devoted to public service work. Dees has written three books: A Season For Justice, his autobiography; Hate on Trial: The Case Against America’s Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi; and Gathering Storm: America’s Militia Threat. In 1991, NBC aired a made-for-TV movie called “Line of Fire” about Dees and his landmark legal victories against the Ku Klux Klan.

Critics haves charged Dees as being a poverty pimp exploiting those groups who are discriminated against in order to raise funds for his organization. They have used a declassified FBI memo with this language,

[i]t is common knowledge the FBI collaborated with Morris Dees’ Southern Poverty Law Center in a joint effort to create violent white supremacist groups where none existed before. A declassified FBI memo reveals that the SPLC had informants at Elohim City on the eve of the Oklahoma City bombing. “If I told you what we were doing there, I would have to kill you,” (bold added for emphasis)Dees said during a press conference.