One Year after “Quaker is Closing” Announcement; How are We Doing?

The date passed rather quietly last week.  But Thursday, April 3rd was the one year anniversary of the announcement that the  Quaker Oats plant in Danville was closing for good.  And although employees were paid through June 8th, Vermilion County Works Director Chuck Jones went to work with his team immediately on opportunities for Quaker workers to seek new employment, along with the training they would need.  And Jones says that the work continues.

AUDIO: There’s still people in our training programs right now.  We’ve just received a grant to continue funding some of our individuals who are seeking longer term training options.  As we progress, hopefully we’ll get to see more and more of those people finish up, and get them back into the labor market.

As the Quaker building was coming down, Vermilion County Works in the American Jobs Center building was working to guide former Quaker employees in new directions.

It goes without saying that with all the efforts Vermilion Advantage and the city are putting forth to bring new employers to the area along East Voorhees, hopefully combining both the old Quaker grounds and the adjacent old Heatcraft grounds; it would be wonderful to be close to figuring it all out by next year’s second anniversary of the Quaker closing.  Vermilion Advantage CEO Mike Marron says that’s the idea.

AUDIO: We’re going to definitely have our targeted industry analysis and our redevelopment plan done.  Hopefully getting that redevelopment plan started in the next month or two, And so that will be wrapped up by the two year anniversary.  (We also) hope to have a plan in place to do any needed infrastructure updates.

Meanwhile, the latest numbers released by the Illinois Department of Employment Security showed a strong jobs picture improvement, both Danville and Vermilion County, for January to February.  Chuck Jones says, that’s great to see; but the real key is what can be done over a longer period of time.

AUDIO: I think we need to keep gathering data.  We need to keep looking at the situation; and then make plans appropriately, based on what we see that longer term trends being.

Those latest numbers showed Vermilion County’s unemployment rate dropping from 6.4% to 5.8% from January to February, and Danville’s dropping from 7.0% to 6.3%.