Emporia’s Rapid Response Task Force met Friday to discuss plans to help employees at Hopkins — and other area employers — that either have been or will be displaced by different business decisions.
Team members are discussing how best to help the 130 employees at Hopkins either already displaced or soon to be displaced after Monday’s announcement of an immediate business closure by Hopkins’ parent company, First Brands. However, Kansas WorkforceONE spokesman Jim Jenkins says the information effort will also include the 45 staffers from ABZ Valve in Madison that will lose their jobs by May as that firm consolidates the Greenwood County operation in Illinois and other workers areawide who are losing their jobs.
Jenkins says two events are developing: a Rapid Response event, where Kansas WorkforceONE and the Kansas Department of Labor will offer information about the unemployment process and connections to retraining, college options or new jobs. A job fair could be scheduled the week of March 23. Kansas WorkforceONE has also been encouraging affected employees to go online to ksworkforceone.org, call 785-493-8018 or email admin@ksworkforceone to start the process and then come to the Emporia Workforce Center inside the Humanitarian Center to have individual or group meetings.
