Coronavirus crisis: Riverside County agencies offer resources for unemployed workers amid pandemic

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- The coronavirus crisis has caused a devastating impact economically. Many businesses have been shuttered, with jobs eliminated or workers furloughed -- all resulting in soaring unemployment statistics in Southern California.

In an interview Tuesday with ABC7, the chairman of the Riverside County with the Workforce Development Board, Jamil Dada, spoke about opportunities for employment amid the pandemic.

Can you tell us more about what types of resources Riverside County is providing to help people who are out of work?

"Through our Riverside County Workforce Development board we basically have two primary resources. The first one is we have America's Job Centers. Those are a one-stop workforce development centers," Dada said.

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"They offer services to workers and to businesses, and workers can receive assistance with applying for unemployment benefits, understanding their unemployment benefits, dislocated worker services, job training and career coaching," Dada said.

How are you helping small businesses, so they can keep their employees and possibly hire new ones?

"We also have three business centers to assist small businesses in applying for the various loans and assistance programs. When unemployed folks come to see us, we have list of them, when employers come and say they're looking for this category or this classification or somebody with this kind of talent, we already have a poll where we connect them," Dada said.

"The three America's Job Centers are in Riverside, Indio and Hemet, and then, we have two smaller employment resource centers - one in Moreno Valley and at the border at Blythe," Dada said.

What about other types of essential information? Where can people in Riverside County find that?

"If they come to those two places, we're able to help them," Dada said.

"The good news is that there's also quite a few businesses that are actually hiring, so we actually have folks in the health care industry, in trucking, in logistics, in grocery chains that call us all the time, and they're looking for people. So, we try to match them up," Dada said.

For more information, visit these Riverside County Economic Development Agency websites: