Survival Skills : Welfare to Work in Los Angeles

Recent welfare reform legislation mandates that aid recipients become employed and economically self-sufficient. The allowable interval of continuous assistance is limited to 24 months for current recipients and 18 months for new recipients, with a lifetime limit of five years on welfare. At least 150,000 current welfare recipients in Los Angeles County must move into the workforce, securing at least partial employment by December 1999. To the extent that they work but do not earn enough to get off welfare, this time counts against their five-year lifetime limit for aid benefits.Individuals attempting to move from welfare to work, and agencies supporting that transition, can benefit from detailed labor market information about promising entry-level occupations available in Los Angeles County. This Report offers a comprehensive screening of all potential entry-level occupations to identify those that provide wages above the poverty level, and require skills that can be acquired within two years. Skill requirements for these occupations are identified and compared to skills held by the majority of welfare recipients to assess opportunities for successful employment.Forty-eight promising occupations are identified and described in detail. They were selected based on skill and ability requirements, requisite skill levels, average wages, and job availability in Los Angeles County during the next five years. Within these promising entry-level jobs, 145,000 openings are projected for Los Angeles County over the next five years. Although this number is encouraging, there may be as many as 5.4 unemployed job seekers (unemployed and discouraged workers, and welfare workers) for each new job opening. The most important skills for securing a promising job include: communications (speaking, writing, listening, etc.), information (gathering, organizing, documenting), and social relationships (social perceptiveness, working with the public)