PA CareerLink® Montgomery County - COVID-19 Update
PA CareerLink® Montgomery County will be closed to the public with a planned reopening date of 4/13/2020, but Title I and BWPO are fully operational remotely and are providing services to dislocated workers and employers impacted by COVID-19. While we are unable to use our available funding to provide Needs Based Payments specific to the COVID-19 layoffs as I had hoped, we have the following available now:
- Unemployment Compensation claim guidance and support (we do not determine eligibility but can help answer questions)
- Career Counseling
- A full menu of online workshops (all in-person workshops have been moved online)
- Short-term online training programs (we are actively working with all of our providers to develop online approved programs quickly and have several ready to go now)
- Support services which can include direct service referrals through our partnership with Community Connections, assistance with transportation (as needed), supplies/equipment needed for training or employment, and other supports needed to successfully complete their online training and enter employment (we are prepared to go as close to the edge of the box without going outside of it for support services).
There have been 10,379 new UC claims between 3/1/2020 through 3/26/2020. As a comparison, Montgomery County unemployment peaked in April 2010 at 7.3% with 31,100 unemployed; we had 17,400 confirmed total in December 2019, so with new claims we stand to come very close to that April 2010 number if not surpass it. PA CareerLink® Montgomery County is here to help.
Three L&I Bureau of Workforce Programs Operations (BWPO) staff, as of 3/27/2020, are working inside our PA CareerLink® to process the influx of new UC claims, a task that is outside of the scope of their work but one that they are graciously doing to help process the overwhelming number of claims statewide. We are so grateful for their commitment!
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