Rapid Response Services For Laid Off Workers

If you are facing a layoff or downsizing by your company, there is help available. Your state's Rapid Response team can come to your work site and help you deal with the effects of the layoff.

What is Rapid Response?

Rapid Response is a strategy designed to respond to major layoffs and plant closings by quickly coordinating services and providing immediate aid to affected workers. Rapid Response teams will work with your employer and any employee representative(s) to quickly maximize public and private efforts to minimize disruptions associated with job loss for individuals and communities. Rapid Response is carried out by the States and local workforce development agencies. Contact your State Dislocated Worker Unit for more information. For layoffs that meet your state's criteria, Dislocated Worker offices may send one or more representatives to your work site to coordinate responses to the layoff before it occurs.

How Rapid Response Can Help You

At employee orientation meetings, you will receive important information, designed to help you get back on your feet, including:

Career counseling
Job search assistance
Resume preparation assistance
Interviewing skills workshops
Information on your local labor market
Unemployment insurance
Information about education and training opportunities
Information on your health benefits and pensions
And much more!

Local services available to you may include:

Use of computers, telephones, and fax machines for your job search;
Financial planning and stress management workshops;
Financial support for training;
Income support if your job was lost due to foreign trade;
Special services for veterans and adults with disabilities.

Connections to Other Re-Employment Services

During Rapid Response, specialists in helping you cope with job change will gather information on your needs and begin to organize the services necessary to help you get back to work. Additionally, Rapid Response on-site meetings will introduce you to representatives of many other programs that can help them in the time of transition. Perhaps the most important of these Rapid Response partners is the One-Stop Career Center. The One-Stop system was designed to bring together many separate partners to seamlessly provide an array of services, from resume preparation to job search to placement to supportive services, to anyone who wishes to have access to these services. Every state has a One-Stop network open to all residents, including those who have been laid off or expect to be laid off from their job.

Benefits of Rapid Response to Workers

The more quickly Rapid Response is begun, the more time is available for laid-off workers to overcome their fears and begin their re-entry into the workforce. Early intervention through Rapid Response allows you to to communicate with your employer about concerns, to take advantage of worker transition committee opportunities, to become involved with peer counseling projects, and to identify, design and oversee layoff aversion and incumbent worker strategies.

When your company allows Rapid Response to take place on the company site and on company time, you will be able to begin services, including training, before you lose your job. The sooner this process is begun, the sooner it can be completed and the more likely that the full array of needed services can be provided to help you become re-employed. Having information and services provided can help you deal with the stress involved with a traumatic event such as a layoff, and additionally can help you get back to work sooner. Be sure to take advantage of whatever services are provided during the Rapid Response process, while you are still employed or while unemployment insurance benefits, severance payments or other financial resources are still available to you.

Trade-Related Layoffs and Plant Closings

With many American jobs being lost due to foreign trade and the phenomenon commonly known as "offshoring," the federal government provides special services to workers whose jobs are lost due to foreign trade. While not all job loss due to foreign competition meets the requirements of the Trade Adjustment Act, the Rapid Response team will work with your company to provide information on the Trade Adjustment Act and the benefits you can receive if your company is certified as trade-affected. Your company, the Rapid Response team, or the workers themselves can file a trade petition with the United States Department of Labor. For more information on the Trade Act and its benefits, contact your state's Dislocated Worker Unit.

Notice of Layoffs

Rapid Response and early intervention services can only be initiated when the state Dislocated Worker Unit or Rapid Response team learns of impending layoffs. Companies will often notify the Rapid Response team of a layoff and invite them to come on site to help the workers who will be laid off. In some cases, employers are required to provide 60 days notice before a layoff. Certain mass layoffs and plant closings will meet the criteria of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining (WARN) Act; the criteria are complex, but some basic levels are layoffs of 50 or more workers at a single site, where 50 is at least 1/3 of the total full-time workforce at that site, or any layoffs of 500 or more workers at a single site. Detailed information on WARN is available from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Rapid Response Contact Information

Contact your state's Dislocated Worker or Rapid Response team for information or to let them know of an impending layoff.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are questions that are often asked by workers who have lost there jobs due to layoffs or plant closings. If you have questions that have not been answered at this web site, visit the Frequently Asked Questions page to see if your question is listed there.