Laid-Off Michigan Workers Re-Train For Green Jobs

America's community colleges are moving toward re-training America's workforce. One school in Dearborn Michigan is an example.

The Straits Times reports:

"In a crowded classroom at Henry Ford Community College, laid off auto workers are learning how to install and manage solar panels. The class is part of a new alternative energy technology programme the college created to help retrain the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the collapse of the auto industry.

Sean Peppers, 37, has spent nearly two decades working in auto supplier plants but has not been called for a single interview since he was laid off from his engineering job in January. He hopes the alternative energy degree will help him find work at a plant building parts for wind turbines, or solar panels, or anything that is not a car. Most of the 65 students taking the alternative energy classes are getting their tuition paid through an state programme which provides scholarships to Michigan residents who are unemployed or earning less than 40,000 dollars a year." See full article.