Grant Details

The Employment Advancement Right Now (EARN) Program is an industry-led, competitive workforce and economic development grant initiative. The program promotes a proven strategy for helping businesses cultivate the skilled workforce they need to compete. It is flexible and innovative, designed to ensure that Maryland employers have the talent they need to compete and grow in an ever-changing 21st century economy.

EARN Maryland aims to

• Address the demands of businesses by focusing intensively on the workforce needs of a specific industry sector over a sustained period.
• Address the needs of workers by creating formal career paths to good jobs, reducing barriers to employment, and sustaining or growing middle class jobs.
• Encourage mobility for Maryland's most hard-to-serve jobseekers through job readiness training which may include GED preparation, occupational skills development, literacy advancement, and transportation and child care components.

Funded EARN programs should seek to create Workforce Training Plans that support most, if not all, of the following goals:

• Move no-skilled or low-skilled workers into better jobs through job readiness, barrier-removal or academic remediation strategies;
• Include career advancement strategies, particularly for incumbent workers;
• Remain sustainable in the absence of State funding;
• Maximize collaboration through direct financial or in-kind contributions by members of the target industry; and
• Include braiding of other public or philanthropic funding streams or in-kind support. 

In 2019, the Maryland State Legislature passed the Clean Energy Jobs Act, which in part, establishes the Clean Energy Workforce Account in the EARN Maryland program. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2021, this account will provide up to $8 million, which must be used to fund Registered Apprenticeship, Pre-Apprenticeship, and Youth Apprenticeship programs that prepare Marylanders for careers in clean industry jobs.