Tester touts Job Corps’ role in training skilled workers, creating jobs

Senator visits dozens of students at Anaconda Job Corps facility

(BIG SANDY, Mont.) – U.S. Senator Jon Tester is touting the role of the nation’s Job Corps facilities in rebuilding public infrastructure and creating lifelong job opportunities, saying they help young people “be all they can be.”

Tester this month toured the U.S. Forest Service’s Job Corps facility near Anaconda, where he met with dozens of students and instructors, and took part in hands-on training.

Video of Tester’s visit is online HERE.

Job Corps facilities specifically emphasize training in trades such as carpentry, bricklaying, welding, mechanics and heavy equipment operation. Tester said such opportunities allow Job Corps participants to “become hardworking taxpayers in this country that will help build our infrastructure, while providing businesses with the skills they need.”

“What I see as I walk around are the skills that that will allow these young people to make good wages, livable wages with benefits, and be able to support a family,” Tester told the students. “We need to make sure our story is told. To make sure that people know the good things that are happening here, so that when policymakers like me go back to Washington DC, they’ll make the right decision for Job Corps.”

Tester noted that a recent proposal passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would have eliminated two-thirds of the nation’s Job Corps facilities.

“We are in some difficult financial times in this country,” Tester said. “We need to take a look at the budget and we need to support the programs that work, and we need to make cuts to the programs that aren’t so good. This is one of those programs that’s a good program.”

The Anaconda Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center is one of three Job Corps Centers in Montana. Together, the three centers serve 1,026 students each year.

-30-