Help wanted? Work needed? $2m to the rescue

On one side: 1,000 Boston-area residents who want to work.

On the other: local businesses hurting for help.

Bridge between the two: $2 million from the state aimed at giving residents a shot at careers in the automotive, hospitality, medical, and financial services industries, all of which are experiencing either rapid growth or shortages of trained personnel.

The initiative is intended to help train 492 low-income, disabled, unemployed, and low-wage new workers, and upgrade the skills of 525 existing workers in the Boston area, according to Eileen Haggerty, sector strategies director of the Commonwealth Corporation, which administers workforce development grants for the state.

The money will be distributed over three years among five job training programs beginning this summer and fall.

In Boston, the At Your Service program, developed by Community Work Services, will train homeless women for jobs in the hotel industry.

These women, now living in shelters such as Rosie's Place and ProjectHope, have families and are transitioning out of welfare.

The 10-week program will train participants for 18 hotel jobs, ranging from room attendant to bellman to front desk. Some of these jobs start at $13 to $17 per hour. With ongoing training and career advancement, workers have the potential to make up to $40,000 a year, according to Serena Powell, executive director of Community Work Services.

Classes, which started last week, will be taught at the agency's offices in North Station and later at some of the area hotels. The organization will train about 40 homeless women for the jobs this year and provide ongoing support. This expands an existing program training the homeless that had been limited to single adults who did not have families.

The rapidly growing hospitality industry in Boston is finding it harder and harder to fill job vacancies, according to Jerry Rubin, CEO and president of Jewish Vocational Service in Boston.

His organization is leading a program that will train 200 people for entry-level jobs in hotels and restaurants this year, as well as upgrading the jobs through training of 300 workers now in those industries.

New immigrants make up a high percentage of these recruits, and English-language skills are an important component of the training, Rubin said.

Classes, which begin in the fall, will be taught at the Boston Convention Center and at area hotels and restaurants. The program trains new recruits and existing workers to upgrade both language and industry-specific skills, including computer, consumer service, food preparation, and room readiness.

With an aging workforce, the local automotive industry is also finding it difficult to find and retain employees, according to Deborah Dempsey, human resource director for the Village Automotive Group, an organization of eight car dealerships in Greater Boston.

The automotive group is one of the private industry groups participating in the two-year old Partnership for Automotive Career Education, a consortium of nonprofit, government, and private industry groups that trains people to enter and advance in the local automotive industry.

This new state funding will allow a class of about 20 students to begin a sixth-month course this week to become automotive technicians, with a second entry-level class starting later in the year. There will also be two cycles of intermediate training, which helps current technicians get specialized skills and pass service exams that allow them to raise their income potential.

"Our goal is to get people to advance in the field," said Sunny Schwartz, deputy director of the Asian American Civic Association, which is one of the nonprofit organizations leading PACE.

PACE provides instruction in basic skills in English, job readiness, math, computers, interviewing, and resume writing. Automotive technician classes are subcontracted to the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in the South End, and the Madison Park Vocational Technical High School in Roxbury.

The Jewish Vocational and PACE programs provide college credit as well as practical training for potential employees.

Year Up Inc., a nonprofit organization headquartered on Summer Street, has received a grant to train 18- to 24-year-old low-income urban young adults for back-office processing jobs in the financial services industry.

The jobs, which pay a minimum of $30,000 a year and often include benefits and tuition reimbursement, are "very entry level," said Lacy Garcia, director of government relations for Year Up.

She said these jobs have historically been filled by college graduates, who typically use the job as a stepping stone. This creates a lot of job turnover that employers are hoping to reduce.

As part of the Year Up program, trainees are enrolled in Cambridge College and will earn 18 college credits for completing the program. New curriculum is being developed and classes will begin in September.

This funding will allow Year Up to train about 70 new students for the financial services industry this year, and 210 new students over the course of the three-year grant.

Although this financial services training program is new, Year Up has been running a successful program training 200 people a year for information technology jobs for local employers.

"The feedback we get from our employers is that these students meet or exceed expectations," said Garcia.

A program led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and includes Children's Hospital Boston and New England Baptist Hospital, will train existing employees to become medical laboratory technicians -- a three-year program that will also award the 22 participants an associate's degree from Bunker Hill Community College.

Medical laboratory technicians perform tests in a variety of areas, including blood banking, chemistry, hematology, immunology, and microbiology.

Training involves not just extensive coursework but also hands-on experience through a six-month apprenticeship in the lab. Classes will begin in October or early November.

There is a shortage both nationwide and locally of medical laboratory technicians, and the Boston area is particularly hard hit because of the volume of hospitals and the decline of certified training programs, according to Lisa Zankman, Beth Israel senior vice president of human resources.

At Beth Israel, there is a 15 percent vacancy rate among lab technicians, and only 22 percent of their current lab techs are under 40 years old. This means that the job shortage "is not a short-term problem," she said.

Jobs as medical lab technicians pay in the mid-$30,000 range, Zankman said. For participants in this program, who now work lower-level jobs such as nursing and medical assistants, this would be a 20 percent wage increase.

Jan Brogan can be reached at ciweek@globe.com