Training in Grocery Jobs to Be Offered

DOWNTOWN —  A new job-training center opening next month on Spring Street will train unemployed people to work as clerks and checkers in grocery stores.

The Center for Employment Training’s new Downtown campus at 426 S. Spring St. will house what officials say is the most comprehensive retail food training program in the country, teaching students how to work in the meat, service deli, hot bakery and grocery departments. The program also will offer lessons in remedial English, math and other basic skills.

About 100 students at a time will enroll in the six-month training course, with classes held seven hours a day, five days a week. Lessons will cover everything from safety, sanitation and cash register operation to theft prevention and inventory control.

Students will have to punch in at 7:55 a.m. each day, and the classroom will simulate the supermarket working environment with check stands and shelves. The Center for Employment Training, a 25-year-old nonprofit organization, will also help students find jobs at the end of the course.

The organization created the grocery training program after the Mexican-American Grocers Assn. conducted an industry survey and found a lack of qualified applicants for many grocery positions, said Manuel Cons, regional director of the Center for Employment Training. The survey found only about six of 100 applicants are hired, and after three months only two of the six remain on the job, Cons said.

Grocers and employers provided input to help develop the classes, and the Mexican-American Grocers Assn. and the Los Angeles County Private Industry Council are partners in the program. It is funded by $1.7 million from the state Employment Training Panel.

Ben Harrington, a longtime executive of the Vons supermarket chain, will head the retail food training program.

Plans are already in the works to expand the program to include general retail training by March, Cons said. The center is talking to officials of the 99-Cent Only Stores about developing the retail classes, Cons said.

Classes in building maintenance, automated office skills and training for security guards will also be offered at the Downtown campus, which is the center’s second Los Angeles site.

Companies interested in donating supermarket fixtures such as check stands, shelves and refrigerated cases for the Downtown campus should call the center at (213) 687-9350.