What are the priorities of the Employment Program?
The priorities of the Employment Program are to Promote policies that improve economic outcomes for low-income working adults by enabling them to improve their skills and fill the job needs of employers in the region. What is the Shifting Gears initiative? A three-year, $10 million effort to improve the education and skills training of the Midwest workforce and promote regional economic growth. For more information, see here. What is the transitional jobs re-entry demonstration? The Joyce Foundation is awarding grants totaling nearly $5.4 million to test a promising strategy for enabling people leaving prisons to connect to jobs. The Joyce grants provide the lynchpin for a $14.5 million initiative that will provide the first large-scale evaluation of whether transitional jobs can improve employment outcomes and reduce recidivism for the growing number of people, currently estimated at 600,000, who return home from the nation s prisons each year. Given your focus on the Great Lakes regi
