Lisa Souza, an assistant manager at Pep Boys Automotive Superstore in West Warwick, talks to a customer about car parts. Souza retrained under the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

Lisa Souza, of West Warwick, lost her job at ON Semiconductor in 2005. Ashkhen Amroyan and Ashot Martirosyan, a married couple from Cranston, both lost jobs at the Swarovski Group last year.

But all three were able to take advantage of a federal program called Trade Adjustment Assistance, which is designed to help employees who have lost jobs as a result of overseas competition or production moving outside the United States.

Under the program, which is administered by the state Department of Labor and Training, Souza went to New England Institute of Technology to learn auto collision repair, Amroyan took English courses and then went to Rhode Island College to train as a medical assistant, and Martirosyan graduated last week from the Bay State School of Technology in Canton, Mass., where he studied air conditioning, heating and refrigeration technology.

Souza is now working as an assistant manager for the Pep Boys Automotive Superstore in West Warwick. Amroyan is working for Coastal Medical in Cranston. Martirosyan is looking for a job.

According to the state Department of Labor and Training, Rhode Island recently received an additional $613,955 in federal financing for the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, bringing the current fiscal year to $1.4 million. The fiscal year for the Trade Adjustment Assistance program runs from Oct. 1, 2006, to the end of next month.

Last year and in 2005, the state received a third infusion of money from the federal government, called an end-of-year allocation. Kim Weiss, trade coordinator for the Department of Labor and Training said there’s a possibility Rhode Island will receive more money at the end of the year.

There are 673 workers from a dozen Rhode Island companies eligible for help under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, although that number is not final. Sandra Powell, assistant director of the Department of Labor and Training’s Workforce Development Services Division, said the first step is for affected employees to apply to the federal government to request certification as workers adversely affected by foreign competition. The application can come from company officials, unions, the state, or any group of three or more employees.

“The feds technically don’t approve the company itself, they approve groups of workers,” Powell said.

Powell said Department of Labor and Training staff members usually talk to company executives when a layoff is announced, to see whether workers might qualify for Trade Adjustment Assistance. One common example would be if a company is moving all or part of its manufacturing capability to another country. The state Department of Labor and Training’s Rapid Response personnel would then notify workers that they might be eligible for the program.

On July 25, the federal Department of Labor notified workers at Quaker Fabric Company in Fall River, which had announced on July 2 that it was closing the business, that the workers are eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance. The financing will go through Massachusetts, where the company is located.

Once groups of workers are approved for TAA, individuals go to state-run career centers to apply for services and benefits. In the case of Rhode Island, that would be one of the six netWORKri centers run by the Department of Labor and Training. Powell said employees have eight weeks from the time they are certified by the federal government for TAA assistance, or 16 weeks from the time they lose their jobs, to apply for individual benefits.

Weiss said that in 2005, 71 percent of eligible employees used some form of TAA benefits and services; the figure was 96 percent for last year.

Powell said one of the first steps for workers using TAA is to determine what they want to do next.

“A lot of people have been working for the same company for a long time, and haven’t had a chance to think about what they want to do,” Powell said. For many employed in manufacturing, she said, it’s impractical to stay in the same field.

The TAA program offers a wide variety of services, including up to two years of occupational training and income support while participants are going to school full time.

“It’s the Cadillac of employment and training programs,” said Powell. “It allows people to be in school for the amount of time they need, and go full time without having to worry about income.”

The TAA program also assists in finding jobs, with benefits that include job search allowances if a certified worker needs to look for employment outside of his or her normal commuting area and a relocation allowance if a worker has to move to find a job.

Workers who are over age 50 can apply for a federal program called Alternative Trade Adjustment Assistance. Under this program, participants who find work at a lower wage than their original job can be eligible for a wage subsidy of 50 percent of the difference between their old and new jobs, up to $10,000 for a maximum of two years.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, nearly $1 billion was appropriated for TAA nationwide last year, with 80,700 people in training programs. According to federal overview of the program, the typical participant is an unemployed woman between 30 and 45, with at least a high school diploma or its equivalent, who had been working in the affected industry for about nine years.

Ashken Amroyan, 44, said she and her husband had very little notice they were being laid off from Swarovski. “It was a shock,” she said. They had worked at Swarovski for about six years.

She said she learned about TAA when she went to the Providence netWORKri Career Center. Originally from Armenia, Amroyan attended English-as-a-second-language classes for two months before studying at Rhode Island College. From RIC she got an internship at Coastal Medical in Cranston. She said her three children, 20, 22 and 16, inspired her to go to RIC.

Lisa Souza said she knew for about a year that her job at ON Semiconductor was in danger. “At first, I really wondered what was going to happen,” she said. “I was there for five years, but I knew people who had been there for 20.” Souza said staffers from the state Department of Labor and Training came to the company and explained how TAA worked.

Souza said auto collision repair intrigued her. “You take something that’s old and damaged, and make it whole again,” she said. “And I’ve always been into old cars and motorcycles.”

Souza said she attended an 18-month program at the New England Institute of Technology. “It [TAA] paid for schooling, books, everything,” she said. The program also provided additional income, called the trade readjustment allowance, after her unemployment insurance ran out and she was still enrolled at NEIT.

After graduating, she said, a job was tough to find. Most body shops were looking for someone with at least five years of experience. After looking for about three months, she said, she landed a job at Pep Boys Automotive Superstores, first in the service department and now in retail as an assistant manager.

“I like it.” Souza said.

asmith@projo.com