Auto plant workers require retraining for solar (San Jose)

Cleantech is touted as one of the Bay Area’s growing economic engines, but it remains to be seen whether it can take the 4,700 workers from the soon-to-close Fremont auto plant along for the ride.

Hundreds of millions of federal stimulus dollars have filtered into or been sought by Silicon Valley companies, with Fremont-based Solyndra Inc. receiving a $535 million loan to build a second manufacturing plant that would hire 1,000 permanent workers and meet a $2 billion backlog of orders.

SoloPower Inc. also is seeking a $200 million U.S. Department of Energy loan to finance construction of a new factory that would employ 500. At least eight other solar and alternative energy companies in San Jose alone have applied for DOE loans.

But before former workers from NUMMI can look to a career in cleantech, experts say they’re going to need serious retraining.

Devin Ruiz, founder of the Solar Training Institute in San Jose, participated in two employee education fairs at the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant. He said workers so far have been unable to sign up for training because they’ve been told that they have to wait until they’re officially unemployed.

“You have generations of auto workers who have never done anything else and never thought about doing anything else, and some of them have limited skills,” Ruiz said. “It’s not like an Intel closing down a location, where people have sharp skills and degrees. The line workers and assembly workers are going to need a lot of help.”

Read the full story in the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.