The Pittsburgh Technology Council is readying the redeployment of its rapid virtual job fair platform to retain out-of-work individuals locally who are poised to be affected by the cuts at Lawrenceville-based Locomation Inc.
On Wednesday, the prominent and promising local startup announced it was laying off 70% of its roughly 80-person workforce — almost all of whom work in Pittsburgh.
Ensuring these workers stay in Pittsburgh is of great importance, according to PTC Senior Vice President for Operations and Government Affairs Brian Kennedy, and that'll be a requirement for any employer looking to recruit these affected workers should they meet on PTC's "Pittsburgh Dream Teams" virtual job fair platform.
Kennedy said the PTC first launched the platform in the wake of Argo AI's shuttering last October, which saw about 700 local workers lose their jobs as the autonomous vehicle company's automotive backers said they'd no longer fund or support the company.
There's no cost for a job seeker to use the platform, nor is there a cost for an employer to use it to recruit and hire workers. The one requirement, Kennedy stressed, is that the employers that use the platform must commit to allowing these workers to remain in Pittsburgh, whether that's because the job offer is for a role based here or because the employer is willing to hire workers remotely who will then stay here.
"This is a new product that we've launched to try and keep the workforce in Pittsburgh when displacements happen," Kennedy said. "Last year and as talk of the recession started heating up, our team started brainstorming ways that we would be able to help our companies — and also help the talent that's powering all of these companies — in the event that downsizing started occurring."
During its first iteration last fall, Kennedy said over 200 Argo employees participated and more than 70 employers with autonomous robotics-related operations sought to recruit talent from the platform. The platform then went live again following the January 2023 layoffs at Lawrenceville-based IAM Robotics.
"At this point, I think we've had somewhere between 95 and 100 employers join us for one of those two events," Kennedy said. "We are certainly reaching out with the strongest of intentions to do this for people that we've seen displaced, particularly at Locomation. We think this talent is the gold mine that we have here in western Pennsylvania so we want to do everything to make sure that the talent can stay here and remain part of our community."
