Alabama Department of Labor Commissioner Fitzgerald Washington announced Thurs., July 2, that the State of Alabama has received over $1.2 million in grant money to expand the Re-employment Services and Eligibility Assessments program, which provides one-on-one re-employment counseling and other services for unemployment claimants.

ADOL served nearly 7,000 clients during 2014, and the grant will allow them to serve an additional 3,000 clients in the coming year. Using the funding provided by the grant,  ADOL will serve clients at career centers across the state who are former service members or claimants identified as most likely to exhaust their unemployment benefits.

Washington celebrated the grant and further explained  ADOL’s plans.

“We are extremely grateful to be a recipient of this grant,” Washington said. “By providing focused, intensive, and direct counseling to these recipients, we believe we can help them land a job in a much shorter amount of time. In some cases, the unemployed may face barriers in going back to work, such as lacking in vocational training or not having the recommended education. By providing these services, we can identify these problems and work to get them corrected so that these people can get back to work and provide for their families.”

Services provided under the grant include development of an individual re-employment plan; access to labor market information specific to the individual’s location, job skills training and employment prospects; one-on-one counseling sessions, a complete review of the claimant’s eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits; and referrals to re-employment services or training.

Statistics gathered from the program revealed that participants were able to decrease the number of weeks that they required assistance.

For a listing of Career Centers, visit www.joblink.alabama.gov and click on “Contact Us.”