Making welfare work: employers step in as reforms ease welfare recipients into job market.(Pennsylvania)

Employers step in as reforms ease welfare recipients into job market

A little more than two years after welfare reform took effect in Pennsylvania, the states welfare rolls have dropped about 40 percent, giving the regions employers a new, albeit often untrained, source of employees.

Many local employers have stepped in to hire the welfare recipients, officials say, a process that is made easier by the presence of tax credits and a tight job market that has many companies struggling to fill entry-level positions.

But the transition has not always been a smooth one for the employers and the new employees.

Penne Scheimer's small Dormont-based temporary agency has placed about 120 welfare recipients in food service jobs over the past two years. There have been individual success stories and her corporate clients have been "fabulous," but the process has "been hard on everybody," she said.

In some cases, "there is an enormous amount of turnover, call-offs and no-shows," Ms. Scheimer said. "This was a big adjustment for everybody."

Ms. Scheimer has built her company, Cull Services of Pittsburgh Inc., by helping her corporate clients - mainly hotels, hospitals and universities - effectively hire …