Idaho State fund helps Kraft train workers

Kraft Foods North America will receive $105,000 from the state’s Workforce Development Training Fund to train 35 new hires in Rupert, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne announced Monday.

By Virginia S. Hutchins
Times-News writer

Kraft said in mid-August that its Rupert factory would add 35 jobs this fall as it finally begins production of natural cheese with equipment it installed last year.

That is a rare bit of good employment news for Mini-Cassia, which has been hit by layoffs at J.R. Simplot Co., Kraft and elsewhere.

"The Workforce Development Training Fund is a significant tool in our efforts to create jobs in Idaho. This grant and others we’ve made show that we’re moving forward in building an economic recovery in Idaho," Kempthorne said in a statement Monday. "Businesses relocate and expand when they have access to a highly educated and well-trained work force. Well-trained employees are well-paid employees."

The governor’s office said the 35 new Kraft workers will earn an average of $14.18 per hour. A Kraft spokeswoman earlier had declined to specify wages but said the jobs would include benefits.

Idaho’s Workforce Development Training Fund is financed from a 3 percent set-aside of the unemployment insurance tax which Idaho employers pay. No state general fund dollars are used.

"Idaho companies that sell a majority of their products or services outside of the state receive first priority, because they’re bringing new revenue into the state," the governor’s office said.

The fund helps companies pay for training new employees or for upgrading the skills of current workers at risk of permanent layoffs. Grants can be for as much as $2,000 per employee, or up to $3,000 per employee in rural areas with high unemployment.

The grant to Kraft was at the top limit (35 times $3,000 is $105,000).

Minidoka and Cassia counties combined had 7.9 percent unemployment in August, the state forecast earlier this month. That’s up dramatically from 6.8 percent in July and 6.6 percent in August 2002.

Kraft makes only Philadelphia-brand cream cheeses at its Rupert plant, after discontinuing bulk cheddar cheese production there in 2002. Last year’s investment in new equipment enabled Kraft to make another natural cheese product — which Kraft declines to name lest competitors learn too much. But the company said business conditions forced postponement of production.

In addition to that delay, Kraft cut 50 cream-cheese jobs in Rupert in the final months of 2002, citing excess manufacturing capacity. That reduced Kraft’s local employment to the current full-time staff of 80.

The mystery cheese’s long-awaited startup will add up to 35 new full-time, hourly jobs plus some seasonal labor, Kraft said.

"Because the business is very competitive, we aren’t speaking specifically to what that product is," Jill Saletta, a Chicago-based spokeswoman, said in August.

Kraft’s cheese customers are mainly grocery stores and food-service companies.

Times-News Business Editor Virginia S. Hutchins can be reached at 735-3242 or [email protected].

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