A year after the Job Corps training centers for poor young adults were shuttered by the Trump administration, they’ve made a comeback due to litigation from advocates who kept them from closing down permanently.
In early August, the Trump administration agreed to rescind its efforts to shutter 99 Job Corps centers nationwide — throwing a lifeline to centers across California, including those in San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego.
The pushback from advocates of the program apparently saved nearly 700 jobs in California’s Job Corps program — though the precise number was unclear given that layoffs and closures of training facilities were supposed to happen several days before last year’s court order kept them temporarily open.
Private contractors running the Job Corps centers declined to comment on how many workers were eventually laid off, or voluntarily left because of the financial shakiness of the program.
The litigation to save the Job Corps program was brought over a year ago by Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer rights advocacy group in Washington, D.C., on behalf of seven young adults living in Detroit; Albany, Georgia; Gulfport, Mississippi; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Minot, North Dakota (two); Astoria, Oregon,
The Job Corps program was not a part of the efforts by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to dismantle government and shed hundreds of thousands of workers. DOGE was set up by the administration to cut spending and jobs shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.
Adam Pulver, the lead attorney for Public Citizen handling the litigation, said the Job Corps program was part of the administration’s plan to rid the government of what it perceived as a money-losing bureaucracy.
“Certainly, cutting the Job Corps program was part of the same view of government (as DOGE.) We got memos (from the Department of Labor) saying it was the administration’s plan to eliminate the program, and what they wanted to do, as these programs they said were massive and inherently wasteful,” Pulver told the Southern California News Group. “That was their approach to things — leave this to the private sector, and government should not be in the business of helping prepare lower-income young adults for the job market.”
Job Corps is a career training and education program administered by the DOL for low-income young adults, ages 16-24. It helps students receive high school diplomas, or a high school equivalency credentials.
The program also offers training in high-demand fields including construction, healthcare, manufacturing and culinary arts. In 2024, more than 25,000 young adults participated in the program, the last year that statistics were publicly available.
The Southern California Job Corps programs got blindsided by the administration’s efforts to kill the program.
All of the centers in California filed plans with the state’s Economic Development Department to permanently layoff their workers by June 30, 2025 — shortly after the administration’s announcement to kill the program.
The Inland Empire Job Corps Center in San Bernardino, which in June 2025 was managed by private contractor Strategix Management LLC, said it would begin laying off 134 workers on June 2, 2025, and complete the permanent closure of the operation by June 30.
Other filings were made by private contractors in June 2025 making similar pronouncements of layoffs and Job Corps facility closures.
Utah-based Management & Training Corp., which runs 13 centers nationwide, filed notices indicating layoffs of 226 workers at its privately managed Job Corps site in Los Angeles and 199 workers in Imperial Beach, a coastal city in the South Bay area of San Diego.
Another private contractor of Job Corps facilities in Northern California — Career Systems Development — announced plans to lay off 133 workers at its San Jose Job Corps Center until the merits of the case could be addressed.
It’s unclear what happened with the layoffs and center closings. Either way, the program was ultimately saved from termination earlier this month when a federal district court issued an order prohibiting the DOL from closing Job Corps centers across the country.
Emily Lawhead, a spokeswoman with Management & Training Corp., said that “all centers remain open, and none have closed.”
“We are not currently taking interviews or speaking on background, and staff and students aren’t able participate in interviews due to DOL limitations,” Lawhead wrote in a statement to SCNG’s request to clarify the status of its operations.
Lawhead declined to answer questions on whether anyone was laid off, how many people are enrolled in the Job Corps programs that MTC runs in Southern California, or any other questions about its fiscal soundness.
For sure, the IE center closed at least temporarily. A news report from the San Bernardino Sun indicated that the Job Corps center in San Bernardino had abruptly closed due to “significant financial challenges.”
Donna Zuniga, head of the L.A. Job Corps center that is run by MTC, did not return phone calls seeking comment. Neither did Evelyn Alvarado, head of the Inland Empire Job Corps training center.
The Long Beach Job Corps center did not file a WARN notice. Representatives could not be reached for comment.
The National Job Corps Association, which represents private contractors running the nationwide program, did not return phone calls or emails requesting comment.
After facing proposed budget cuts and a pause in operations, Congress approved $1.76 billion funding for the program in February 2026. Bipartisan support in Congress for the Job Corps program put pressure on the Trump administration to back $1.76 billion in federal funding through June 30, 2027, and abandon efforts to shut it down nationwide, according to Public Citizen’s Pulver.
“There was no transition plan for what was going to happen with all of these students who were suddenly losing a place to work,” Pulver said. “Some programs continue to grow. Other centers are struggling with the effects of the difficulties in recruitment. But the centers are open and providing services.”
