Montana receives $800K in employment support following mill closures

The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded Montana $800,000 to support those impacted by the Pyramid Lumber and Roseburg Forest Products mill closures.

The $800,000 is the first portion of nearly $2 million in a National Dislocated Worker Grant that the federal government has approved for employment and training services. Roseburg closed in May, while Pyramid Lumber cut its last log last week. Both mills are located in Missoula County.

“States are allowed to request whenever they see a large layoff or something like a natural disaster in their state,” Kim Vitelli, an administrator of the Department of Labor’s office of workforce investment, said. “And so the state of Montana saw that they really needed to be able to provide additional assistance to people impacted by the closures and so applied for funding.”

Montana’s Department of Labor and Industry will help develop workforce plans to identify training for high-demand jobs.

The state launched a dashboard in April to help match skills from the lumber industry to other jobs.