Labor Department to shutter Job Corps centers, including two in Georgia
Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer stands behind President Donald Trump after he signs executive orders in the Oval Office on April 23, 2025. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon look on. (Photo by)
Job Corps centers in Albany and Brunswick are set to shut their doors by June 30 after the U.S. Department of Labor announced plans to suspend operations at nearly 100 locations nationwide.
The Job Corps program dates back to 1964 and was created as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's 'War on Poverty.' The program, which claims to be 'the largest nationwide residential career training program in the country,' works by providing low-income students ages 16 to 24 with housing, education, career training and employment assistance, primarily in industries like manufacturing, construction and health care.
However, the program encountered serious hurdles during the COVID-19 pandemic, and currently faces a $140 million budget deficit that Department of Labor officials estimate could grow to $213 million by next year. The federal agency cited a report from April highlighting metrics like the average annual cost per student, average total costs per graduate and total violent crime rates.
'Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,' U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement. 'However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.'
In total, 99 centers that are run by contract agencies will be forced to close should the plan take effect. An additional 24 centers owned and operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will not be affected by the closures. Atlanta is home to the program's Region 3 office, overseeing centers across Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The Department of Labor said it plans to arrange transportation back home for roughly 25,000 currently enrolled students, and to connect them with other educational and employment resources. It is unclear how many students across Georgia will be affected. Calls to the Atlanta-based Jobs Corps office were not answered and emails sent to two top officials received a bounce back message.
Lawmakers in Congress were quick to push back against the sudden closures, citing a long history of bipartisan support for the program.
'The Job Corps program is the embodiment of a hand up and not a handout,' said U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, an Albany Democrat who co-chairs the bipartisan Congressional Job Corps Caucus. 'It provides workforce skills and training that empower participants to become self-sufficient and productive citizens. Today's foolish action by the White House and the United States Department of Labor to close the Job Corps program will shatter the dreams and aspirations of tens of thousands of promising students.'
Critics of the closures, including the National Job Corps Association, have also argued that the data used to compile the report is misleading, since it focuses solely on metrics from 2023, a year when the program was still struggling to recover from pandemic-era hurdles that lowered enrollment and graduation numbers.
Notably, this is not the first time President Donald Trump's administration has targeted the Job Corps program for closures. Sonny Purdue, the former Georgia governor who later served as Agriculture Secretary in the first Trump Administration and is now the chancellor of the Georgia Board of Regents, also attempted to shutter nine Job Corps centers and transfer an additional 16 centers to private contractors back in 2019. However, he quickly dropped the bid after encountering fierce congressional pushback — including from then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
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