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Northern Berkshire Coalition Examines Unemployment, Job Training
By Rebecca Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
03:46AM / Wednesday, October 14, 2015
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Ricco Fruscio, program coordinator with the North Adams Chamber of Commerce, talks about his experiences with North Adams businesses.

NBCC Executive Director Adam Hinds introduces the monthly forum on Friday.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — This month's Northern Berkshire Community Coalition forum focused on income equality and workforce development.

The irony of this particular forum being held the day after the announcement that SABIC Innovative Plastics is leaving Pittsfield and taking 300 jobs with it didn't escape NBCC Executive Director Adam Hinds.

"It's a very tangible example of what we're up against," Hinds said Friday to the crowd of about 85 people gathered to discuss the topic.

Hinds had intended to introduce Heather Boulger, executive director of the Berkshire County Regional Employment Board, to offer some statistics about the state of employment in Berkshire County. Boulger, however, had to bow out to deal with the SABIC situation in Pittsfield, and so Hinds relied on some other experts to bring the group up to speed.

First up was Nathan Skrocki from the Department of Transitional Assistance, who said his agency serves 9,000 people in Berkshire County, offering SNAP benefits as well as cash assistance. Skrocki said that 50 percent of the people who receive SNAP benefits are actually employed in some capacity.

"It's not people who are looking for handouts," he said. Instead, he said his agency aims to help people who have temporarily hit "rock bottom" to get back on their feet.

"We're there to bridge that gap to self-sufficiency," he said. "Our main objective is to be that safety net."

Another safety net is the Mass Rehab Commission, which assists individuals of all disabilities to go to work. Kate Angelini, the MRC's area director, said she works with more than 800 people around Berkshire County, 56 percent of whom are men and 40 percent of whom are receiving SSI or SSDA benefits. Surprisingly, she said, 40 percent of the people she works with are under the age of 30 and the biggest reason why the people she assists are not working is not physical limitations, it's actually mental health concerns.

Angelini said one big barrier to people going to work is their fear of losing some of the benefits that are sustaining them.

"Fear of losing something is a deterrent to taking a risk," she said. "Getting the facts is a huge step toward allaying these fears."

Her job, she said, is to match the needs to employers with potential employees. In other words, she wants the answer to one big question: "What are these 1,700 unfilled job in Berkshire County?"

Ricco Fruscio, program coordinator with the North Adams Chamber of Commerce, which has 105 businesses as members, said he might have a piece of that answer. When not working for the chamber, Fruscio said, he works two days a week at Carr Hardware in North Adams, which has seen four entry-level customer service jobs go unfilled for six months despite more than two dozen interviews.

"The basic person that walks through the door doesn't know how to make eye contact with a manager," Fruscio said. "I don't know if that's part of the new generation, that they are afraid to interact with other people."

Fruscio said he thinks young job seekers need assistance in being confident, willing to learn, flexible, dependable and honest when looking for employment.

"There are the main things employers are looking for," he said. "We need to get to the fundamentals, (someone who's) willing to say the words, 'I'm looking for a job, will you hire me?'"

Two other people in the room had answers to that. Melanie Gelaznik, BerkshireWorks' manager of program operations, said her agency holds work readiness sessions to help address those kinds of issues.

"It's getting the word out there to the community," said Gelaznik, who said a related program BerkshireWorks offers is paying half a new employee's salary for six months while the employee gets on-the-job training.

Maryam Kamangar, the community development manager of Goodwill of the Berkshires and Southern Vermont, also had input on that — from both sides of the coin.

Kamangar shared that as a new Berkshire County resident a few years ago, she volunteered at Goodwill before she was offered a job, and her position was half-funded through the BerkshireWorks program.

"You can see that it really does work," said Kamangar, whose job now is to identify what communities need in terms of job development, which is what Goodwill's mission is — beyond selling cheap jeans and T-shirts. To do that, she said, she goes to food pantries, libraries, etc., and talks to the people who could use some of the job training skills that Goodwill offers.

"I have to really go to the communities and see what is the problem," she said, emphasizing that that's the best way to truly pinpoint a problem that needs solving. "They're not going to come to you if you sit in your office."

And that's why Hinds said he is embracing a "design thinking" perspective of brainstorming that involves the first step of "learning from people" — and why he encouraged on Friday hearing some thoughts from a North Adams resident who has been having trouble finding employment, a Goodwill manager who started from the bottom and worked his way up to a manager and a local man with learning disabilities who wants to work part time but sometimes runs into discrimination.

"[We need] a point of empathy," Hinds said.

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