Bloomberg Government: Nevada Delegation Presses Labor Department to Restore Job Corps

• Letter cites success of the program in Nevada
• Shutdown of program halted temporarily in court

A bipartisan group of Nevada lawmakers demanded the US Labor Department backtrack on its plans to shutter Job Corps, citing concerns about the displacement of students and staff, as well as a training pipeline in the Silver State.

In a letter sent to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer Thursday the coalition warned that the administration’s efforts to close down the training program for low income youth “will strip countless young people of the opportunity to gain valuable skills, education, and a pathway to stable employment.”

“The ripple effects will be felt by local economies and employers who depend on Job Corps graduates to fill critical roles in industries such as construction, healthcare, information technology, and more,” the letter, sent Thursday by Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, as well as Gov. Joe Lombardo (R), and Reps. Mark Amodei (R), Steven Horsford (D), Dina Titus (D), and Susie Lee (D) said.

Worse, they wrote, the closure of the Job Corps center in Nevada will mean it will have to evict all of its students, “leaving the vast majority at serious risk of homelessness.”

The effort follows the DOL’s announcement late last month that it was instructing 99 Jobs Corps centers nationwide to halt operations by June 30. The agency said the decision was necessary after an internal review of the program found the average cost per student was more than $80,000 annually and nearly 15,000 serious incidents reported at Job Corps centers in 2023, including drug use, violence, and sexual assault.

The move was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on June 4, which has left many Job Corps students and centers scrambling in the whiplash.

The Nevada officials said the now-frozen order to pause Job Corps operations would “displace approximately nearly 300 students and 170 staff members” at the Sierra Nevada Job Corps Center, in Reno. They also said that the national statistics don’t reflect the performance of the Job Corps program in their state, which graduates more than 500 students a year.

“In the 2024 program year alone, nearly 82 percent of its students secured full-time employment with a starting wage of at least $17.97 per hour—nearly $6 above the Nevada’s minimum wage,” they wrote. “Furthermore, 75 percent of Sierra Nevada Jobs Corps participants earn at least one certification required by employers.”