Job-Hunting Success High Through ‘Win-Win’ Program

A unique training program in Spokane aims to give a boost to job-hunting welfare recipients.

In its first three months, the program - sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and Community Colleges of Spokane - trained 46 recipients for work in the city’s booming telemarketing industry.

Three out of four landed jobs.

Their average starting pay was $7.50 an hour. An unusually large number got full-time work, with benefits. That’s much better than most welfare recipients get entering the job market.

The classes teach job skills - training on computers and phone - and “life skills,” ranging from problem-solving and improving self-esteem to good posture.

Twenty-one enrollees are now attending the five-week classes. Students are recruited from welfare offices based on their potential and willingness to commit to the program.

There’s no shortage of openings at local call centers. Dakota Direct is now hiring 200 new employees, and Coldwater Creek hopes for at least that many at its Coeur d’Alene center.

Program coordinator Joanne Murcar calls the program a “win-win.” Graduates fulfill the requirements of welfare reform and land jobs that pay above minimum wage.

“This gets them started at a higher-level wage than if they just took the first job offered,” Murcar said.

It’s worked for Sherra Eutsler, a 26-year-old single mother of two. She was hired Thursday, even before her class finished.

She starts full-time work at Dakota for $6.75 an hour. The classes boosted her self-esteem; she even walks tall now, thanks to the etiquette class.

“I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders,” she said.