Three Central Pennsylvania programs designed to prepare students for the workforce are among 12 programs chosen to receive Schools-to-Work grants. 

A new program, the Environmental and Food Service Associate Training Program, will offer free work skills and on-the-job training for hospital house cleaning and food service. 

PNC Foundation is supporting Thaddeus Stevens College Foundation’s efforts to put low-income adults from Black and brown communities in Lancaster to work. 

Apprenticeship programs are growing across the state to help students earn while they learn and provide employers with a stream of workers they need.  Thursday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced awards totaling more than $11 million for 26 apprenticeship programs for occupations in agriculture, manufacturing, health care, IT, education, human services, building trades and more.  “Apprenticeships ...

The Pennsylvania Petroleum Association (PPA) finished expansions to its Pennsylvania Petroleum Association Technical Education Center (PPATEC), which it says will help it increase the number of qualified home and business heating and cooling service professionals in the area. 

How robust is the demand for office space in central Pennsylvania? Among developers and commercial real estate agents, perspectives vary, with some seeing strong activity across the board, while others point to uncertainty as businesses navigate the COVID-19 economy.

Kendra Auker is president and CEO of the Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg. She oversees 2,000 employees, 1,600 of them women, and many of them in their child rearing years.

“Physically, psychologically, it was too much,” Grab said, adding that a lot of nurses left the field in the past year. “Unfortunately, there are not enough nurses in the pipeline to fill those spots.”

With vaccines now readily available and COVID-19 numbers dropping, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry is saying it will soon be time for those on unemployment to start looking for work.

On May 13, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) changed its COVID-19 masking guidelines, announcing fully vaccinated Americans could now unmask indoors.

The PRO Act, a prospective legislative move currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, as proposed would ban state right-to-work laws, require employers to provide personal employee information to unions, such as cell phone numbers and addresses, and make it harder for companies to legally hire gig workers.  

Under the proposed Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act gig workers including freelancers, independent contractors and temporary workers would need to pass a test to be classified as gig workers. 

Racial inequities in the unemployment count persist, according to the United States Department of Labor’s April Jobs Report.  

Pennsylvania has resumed use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, following a thorough federal review which reaffirmed the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness against the virus, according to the Harrisburg-based Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania.

When it comes to focusing on workplace wellness amidst the pandemic, many things come to mind. Stress management, social distancing, mask-wearing and working from home when possible. All contribute to keeping workers healthy, both mentally and physically.