Grant to train unemployed for IT

A U.S. Department of Labor grant will train 3,300 dislocated or unemployed

workers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area for information technology

jobs.

Labor awarded the grant last week to the Washington Metro Area Technology

Initiative. The group will draw trainees from the city and within a 50-mile

radius in the neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland. They'll learn

on-location at participating companies, including Lockheed Martin, Lucent

and Pepco.

"The $20.2 million grant we are awarding [today] will prepare 3,300

workers for the most in-demand jobs," Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman said

in a statement. "Two hundred people are enrolled now in the development

phase of this project [and] we expect that nearly all of the trainees will

find good-paying jobs in the area's high-tech companies."

A consortium of the Virginia, Maryland and District governments manages

the initiative, which got started in 1998. The grant enables the project

to become fully operational.

There are six offices for the project, two each in the District and

nearby cities in Virginia and Maryland.