Wichita’s laid-off aviation workers find new opportunities in unlikely federal program
When Tracy Taylor was laid off from her job on the 737 program at Spirit AeroSystems in January, she wasn’t sure what she would do next. It was a lot to take in, she said, and she had to sit at home for a bit to process the loss of work and income.
But she knew she couldn’t do that for long. Taylor had been through layoffs before. She worked for Spirit for about a year and a half, but she’d held various jobs in the food industry before then. So she walked into the Wichita Workforce Center one day in early March, before COVID-19 hit in full force, to figure out what her next step might be. From there, things fell into place quickly.
Now Taylor, 32, is back in school at WSU Tech, hoping to work in nursing after the two-year program is up. While it might seem like a drastic shift from her job in aviation, Taylor had always wanted a job in health care. She considered the field when she was younger, but ultimately decided against it. Now seemed as good a time as any to return to it.
Taylor is one of around 9,100 people who lost their jobs through either a layoff or a furlough related to the 737 Max fallout since last December, according to figures kept by the Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas. The Alliance operates the Wichita Workforce Center as well as the Butler, Cowley and Sumner workforce centers in the region.
When COVID-19 hit, the job losses in Wichita continued to mount. The Workforce Alliance estimates 45,447 people have been laid off or furloughed in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Wichita region since December.
Combined with the 737-related layoffs and various others, that’s around 54,852 people in the region who have lost their jobs this year alone. Some of these employees have returned to work after a furlough, as opposed to a layoff, but it’s not clear how many.
While experts and workers alike believe aviation will make its comeback in Wichita eventually (after all, this is the air capital of the world), laid-off employees are left wondering what to do in the meantime.
The Workforce Center offers options like the Dislocated Worker and Trade Adjustment Assistance programs to help workers get back on their feet, whether they need a new job immediately or can take time for new education or skills training. Workforce centers in the Wichita region served about 2,100 job seekers in June, according to the Workforce Alliance. Virtual resources are available as well.
Taylor plans to obtain her nursing degree through the TAA program. Around 166 people have enrolled for TAA benefits, according to the Workforce Alliance.
Worker programs help relieve financial burden of education
For those needing a new job immediately, it might not make sense to pay to return to school or go through new training classes. That’s where the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, and other options, come in.
By covering the cost of tuition and allowing Taylor to receive income support while she attends classes full time, TAA removes some of the financial burden for people seeking new skills or education.
At first glance, TAA might seem an odd fit to help people impacted by layoffs in the COVID-19 economy. The federal program was created to help workers who lost their jobs as a result of foreign trade, by allowing them to rebuild skills for future jobs.
Workers are eligible for TAA benefits if they are laid off from a company where the downsizing was certified under the Trade Act within a certain time period. In Wichita, workers laid off from Exacta Aerospace, Center Industries, The Boeing Company, SBM Site Services, Atlas Group, Cox Machine, Axiom Engineering, Schenker Inc., Spirit AeroSystems, Learjet and more could be eligible for TAA if their job loss falls within a certain time period. You can reach out to the Wichita Workforce Center for more information.
Before the TAA program became an option for Taylor, she had planned to stick it out in aviation. So had Russell Speirs.
Speirs felt stuck before the chance to do the TAA program arose for him. He lost his job with Bombardier in February 2019, he said, after his contract work was up.
Now, he’s a full-time student at WSU Tech working toward his associate’s degree in business administration. He is set to graduate in the fall of 2021.
Speirs worked for Bombardier for nearly 20 years. He was first laid off from the company in 2016, then took a job with another manufacturing company for a while. He later returned to Bombardier through contract work, hoping he could make his way back to aviation full-time.
When he lost his job with Bombardier a second time, he knew that wouldn’t happen.
Before last fall, Speirs hadn’t gone to college, and he knew one day he’d have to get more education if he was to do something different.
He also knew it would be an undertaking to go back to school full time when he has a family at home, said Speirs, 45. He made the choice to go ahead anyway, thinking toward the future.
“With aviation, nothing is guaranteed anymore,” he said. “It’s so volatile.”
Now he has the chance for what he’s calling personal improvement. When Speirs graduates next fall, he’ll probably look for job opportunities outside of aviation.
However, he believes he could still return to aerospace one day -- just with more education and skills under his belt.
‘I can’t wait around forever’: laid-off aviation workers seek new opportunities
The aviation industry wasn’t Taylor’s first choice initially, but she grew up in aircraft: her dad worked at Bombardier and her mom at Boeing, when the company was in Wichita.
Taylor had planned to stay away from aerospace, but ended up working for Spirit out of necessity. She had been laid off in the food industry and spent months searching for a new job when the opportunity at Spirit arose. She grew to enjoy the work.
After the layoff, she was involved in an upskill program at the Workforce Center to gain new skills in inspection for aircraft. She figured she could move up at Spirit when the jobs opened again.
That was before the coronavirus pandemic hit. At first, she thought she might be able to get her job with Spirit back by July. But that didn’t happen, and her thoughts of moving up within aircraft began to fade away.
Had the TAA program not been on the table, she would have continued with the aerospace upskill and made the best of it.
“But when I was offered the chance to change, I jumped on it,” she said.
She’s still waiting on the approval process to join the TAA program after initially using the Dislocated Worker program. This time around, she’s hoping for something a bit more stable than the aviation industry.
“At this point, who knows when aircraft’s gonna come back?” Taylor asked. “Will they come back in Wichita? Absolutely. Is it gonna be in the near future? Probably not. And I can’t wait around forever for that to happen.”
In the meantime, people need jobs to support themselves and their families. For many, it became urgent to find new opportunities.
In the Seattle area, laid-off Boeing workers also found an unlikely friend in Trade Adjustment Assistance. The workers’ unions pushed to make the TAA benefits available to those laid off by the aerospace company.
The unions, IAM and SPEAA, also represent aviation workers in Wichita. They’re hoping to have the TAA benefits extended to all aerospace workers at Boeing suppliers throughout the country, according to the Seattle Times.
Taylor and Speirs both recommended the TAA program, although they know it isn’t an option for everybody. Resources can be limited. If you’re not sure what to do, but need some help, you can still turn to the Wichita Workforce Center to get a start on your next path, they said.
“The TAA program kind of fell in my lap, and I’m grateful for it,” Taylor said. “The opportunity is always gonna be there for people, but you might not know where to look. It can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to start.”
You can make an appointment with the Wichita Workforce Center online at www.workforce-ks.com/book-an-appointment to learn more about TAA and other programs available to laid-off workers.
You can also learn more about TAA online from the Kansas Department of Commerce, at www.kansascommerce.gov/programs-services/workforce-services/trade-adjustment-assistance.
This story was originally published July 26, 2020 at 4:47 AM.
