Council due to divvy up cash

CITY HALL — With local unemployment back on the rise, the City Council on Tuesday voted to disburse $1.3 million in economic stimulus money to 10 work training programs in an effort to retrain dislocated workers for a drastically changed market.

Glendale Community College, Studio Arts, Burbank Adult School and the Career Development Institute are among those expected to share the funding. The institutions will bear responsibility for training workers for emerging fields, as well as bringing industry veterans up to speed on technological shifts in the fields of entertainment and health care.

The proposal would use nearly half of the $1.3 million in workforce economic stimulus funds for employment and training services earmarked by the council last month.

Unemployment rates rose to 9.9% and 9.2% in Glendale and Burbank, respectively, according to figures released Friday by the California Economic Development Department. The latest figures represented a reversal of what had been minor drops in the local unemployment rate.

“Employers tend to be cautious after economic downturns,” said Don Nakamoto, labor market specialist for the Verdugo Workforce Investment Board, which coordinates work training for the Burbank-Glendale area. “Typically, it is not until six or seven months after the economy bottoms out that we begin to see employers hiring again.”

Under the proposal, Studio Arts would receive $115,192 to work with 16 out-of-work digital effects professionals in need of upgraded skills to re-enter the workforce.

The industry shift from hand-drawn to digital has resulted in thousands of veteran artists losing their jobs, said Eric Huelsman, owner of Studio Arts. The private trainer hosts seminars on Toon Boom, After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Flash to help bring animators up to speed on the ever-changing technology.

“They were so busy working that they didn’t have an opportunity to learn it,” Huelsman said, citing Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and DreamWorks Animation SKG as companies going through the transition.

To fill out their ranks, entertainment behemoths of late have turned to technologically savvy recent college graduates as well as foreign artists.