Jobs Now RI, an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act program, has been enacted with encouraging results due to the creation of many new jobs in Rhode Island.

Jobs Now Rhode Island is a jobs creation program that will, for a limited time, reimburse business 100 percent of wages for qualifying hires. The program was created in an attemp to spur on the creation of new jobs.

The program is effective through 2010 and has seen positive results so far. Both Capco Steel and Edesia, a startup company in Rhode Island, have applied and received workers through the act.

Jobs Now Rhode Island is ideal for businesses preparing to expand their workforce, because it gives employers the opportunity to evaluate and train workers before committing to long-term hires. Companies that retain the Jobs Now workers beyond the duration of the program may qualify for additional tax credits. Jobs Now Rhode Island is also well suited for businesses desiring temporary and/or seasonal help.

Jobs Now Rhode Island hiring cannot be used to reinstate or replace recently laid-off workers.

1. All individuals hired under Jobs Now Rhode Island shall be hired as regular members of the Employer’s work force and are subject to the same conditions of employment as the Employer’s other regular employees, including periodic wage increases for performance or termination for unsatisfactory performance. Other conditions of employment include the following:
2. The Employee is on the Employer’s regular payroll.
3. The Employee receives the same benefits as the employees on the Employer’s regular payroll performing similar work.
4. The Employee receives the same starting wage and other wage increases as other employees performing similar work.
5. If Employee is performing work not being performed by other employees, Employer will pay a starting wage consistent with the local labor market.
6. The Employee is provided special clothing or equipment if such is provided to the Employer’s regular employees performing similar work.
7. The Employee is provided supervision and training in the occupation for which the individual is hired in order to obtain transferable skills.

Jobs Now Rhode Island can connect eligible Rhode Islanders with full-time, available employment in their field of expertise. While these jobs are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through September 2010, many employers may choose to retain their Jobs Now employees as longer-term hires.

Eligible job seekers must be Rhode Island residents who earn an income at or below 225 percent of the federal poverty level.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is projected to save thousands of jobs in Rhode Island (click here).

The Act has been responsible for creating or saving 11,000 jobs in Rhode Island since its signing in February 2009, the Obama administration said Friday.

 According to PBN.com, that would be 2.4 percent of the 452,500 non-farm payroll jobs in Rhode Island as of last month.

Rhode Island has lost 44,000 jobs since employment here peaked in January 2007, so by the White House’s estimate the stimulus has kept Rhode Island’s employment losses 20 percent below what the total would have been without it.

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Starpoint Solutions, a staffing firm, is looking to hire 20 to 60 people for IT jobs in Rhode Island.

Starpoint Solutions is based in New York and is looking to hire up to 70 people in Rhode Island, with 20 to 60 being in the IT arena.

Five to 10 sales people and recruiters will also be hired in Providence.

As of December, Corporate Search Group, Inc. (CSG) became a part of Starpoint Solutions. Starpoint describes its business as a full-service staffing firm with a solid record of successful placements in the Finance, Accounting and Banking arena. 

According to the Starpoint Solutions site, the combination of CSG with Starpoint brings a “wider range of offerings to clients including application development; enterprise software services; and staffing solutions for Accounting and Finance, as well as IT, Administrative, Network & Infrastructure Technology, and Executive Management.”

Starpoint also has an office in Boston and wants to establish their business in Rhode Island as well.

Positions that will come available in Rhode Island in the coming months will be listed on the Starpoint website.

 The welcome news comes at a time when hiring in Rhode Island has been sluggish.

The State of Rhode Island is among those that are not seeing any relief from the current economic recession, with the state continuing to lose more jobs and Rhode Island unemployment continuing to increase.

During June, Rhode Island saw its unemployment rate increase from 12.1 percent to 12.4 percent, which is higher than the national unemployment rate at the time of 9.5 percent. The state has not seen its unemployment rate decrease since January 2007, when it went from 4.9 percent to 4.8 percent.

 More good news: the maximum amount of money that the State of Rhode Island allows people to collect in unemployment benefits each week is about to increase, according to the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training.

It was recently announced that the maximum amount for someone without dependents will increase by $18 per week, or 3.4 percent, from $528 to $546. The maximum amount for someone with five or more dependents will increase by $22 per week, or 3.3 percent, from $660 to $682.

It could take more than half a decade for Providence jobs to recover to a pre-recession level.

A new report from IHS Global Insight predicts that unemployment in the Providence-Fall River-Warwick area will not return to its pre-recession rate until after 2014. The report also predicts that Rhode Island’s annual rate of job growth will average between .5 percent and 1.1 percent between now and 2014.

Providence is one of 71 metropolitan areas that aren’t expected to return to recent employment peaks until after 2014. Other areas include Cleveland, Detroit and Los Angeles. In comparison, the Boston area is expected to return to its pre-recession employment level by the second quarter of 2014. The analysis is part of a study of 325 of the 363 metropolitan areas throughout the country.

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