By Patricia Beech-

For the next two years employers and unemployed workers across Adams County will have increased support overcoming issues associated with the opioid epidemic, thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.
The “Trade and Economic Transition National Dislocated Worker Grant” will be administered by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS).
The grant will provide resources to support employers who hire individuals in recovery. Grant funds will also help to create an Addiction Services Apprenticeship at area community colleges, in addition to providing job training and other services aimed at helping unemployed workers overcome their addiction and find jobs.
According to ODJFS Director Cynthia Dungey, drug addiction and overdose deaths have become the most pressing public health issue and workforce challenge facing Ohio.
To tackle the challenges, Dungery’s organization will partner with local workforce professionals, community colleges, and businesses to address the workforce challenges created by the opiate epidemic.
“This grant will help businesses rebuild their workforces,” Dungery said in a recent news release. “It will help individuals rebuild their lives.”
In a recent op-ed for Cleveland.com, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) said Ohio is experiencing job growth, but workers are scarce across the state.
“Despite all these job openings in Ohio, we still have a historically high number of people out of the workforce altogether,” he wrote. “I believe it is because the opioid epidemic gripping our state has depleted the pool of workers and stunted our full economic potential.”
Experts say the opioid epidemic that killed thousands of people in Ohio in 2017 is also impacting businesses by driving up healthcare costs and weakening the labor market.
Economists say the U.S. “labor force participation rate” is low, which means there are many unemployed Americans not even looking for work, who are therefore not recorded in the unemployment numbers.
“It’s so bad that if our labor force participation rate were at its pre-recession level, our country’s unemployment rate wouldn’t be 4.0 percent as it is today,” Portman wrote. “It would be 8.6 percent.”
Additionally, a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland reported that areas with high levels of prescribed opioids have lower workforce participation rates than those with low levels of opioid prescriptions — by an average of 4.6 percent for men and 1.4 percent for women.
Some businesses were surveyed separately and about half reported that the opioid epidemic has negatively impacted them.
“I hear this from business owners who say it is a challenge to find people who can pass a drug test,” Portman wrote. “But, the bigger problem is those who aren’t even showing up to take the drug test because they are not looking for work.
According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) millions of Americans suffer from pain and are often prescribed opioids to treat their conditions. However, the dangers of prescription misuse, opioid use disorder, and overdose have been a growing problem throughout the United States.
Since the 1990s, when the amount of opioids prescribed to patients began to grow, the number of overdoses and deaths from prescription opioids has also increased. Even as the amount of opioids prescribed and sold for pain has increased, the amount of pain that Americans report has not similarly changed.
From 1999 to 2016, the CDC reports more than 200,000 people died in the United States from overdoses related to prescription opioids. Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids were five times higher in 2016 than in 1999.
In 2016, nearly 948,000 people in the United States (12-years old or older) reported using heroin in the past year, which is an estimated rate of 0.4 per 100 persons. And in 2015, 81,326 emergency department visits occurred for unintentional, heroin-related poisonings in America, which is an estimated rate of almost 26 per 100,000 people.
Several counties across the Southern Ohio Region are slated to share in the grant funding, including: the Southern Region comprised by Brown, Adams, Ross, Pike, Scioto, and Lawrence counties; the Western Region made up of Preble, Montgomery, Clark, Fayette, and Clinton counties; the Southeswest Region of Butler, Hamilton and Clermont counties; and the Mahoning Valley Region of Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
Services provided by the grant will be tailored to local needs but may also include any of the following: testing of innovative approaches to combat addiction issues – for example, by supporting employers that develop second-chance policies and hire individuals in recovery; job training, career services and supportive services for individuals affected by the opiate epidemic – supportive services can include anything from health, mental health and addiction treatment to drug testing, help purchasing work clothes or transportation assistance; and building the addiction treatment, mental health and pain management workforce, including a new addiction services apprenticeship at two-year colleges.
To accomplish their goals, the ODJFS is partnering with a broad range of social services agencies including the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation; the departments of Mental Health and Addiction Services; institutions of higher education, Medicaid, Public Safety and Health organizations; 16 OhioMeansJobs centers; 12 Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services boards; local two-year colleges; Community Action Agencies; libraries and mental health treatment providers. Additional partners may join as the planning progresses.