On May 29, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a phased pause in operations at 99 contractor-operated Job Corps centers nationwide, including the Clearfield campus, which is managed by the Management & Training Corporation, or MTC. As a result, the center was directed to fully transition its students out of the program by June 6 with operations scheduled to end June 30.

“Students were not allowed to complete their training through Job Corps, whether they were near completion or not,” MTC Director of Communications Emily Lawhead explained in an email to the Standard-Examiner. “Our staff were working hard to help students develop a plan to find employment, other training programs, housing and transportation, among other needs.”

On June 2, the National Job Corps Association filed for a temporary restraining order on behalf of all private Job Corps operators. U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter of the Southern District of New York later issued a preliminary injunction, halting the government’s shutdown plans.

A full hearing is scheduled for June 17; in the meantime, centers have resumed normal operations.

The Department of Labor cited multiple factors in the decision to pause operations at contractor-operated centers, stating that a fiscal analysis had revealed the program is “no longer achieving the intended outcomes” for students. The department further cited the frequency of “serious incident reports.”

Documentation explaining the pause state that Job Corps operated at a $140 million deficit nationally during program year 2024. According to the Department of Labor’s Job Corps Transparency Report, the highest graduation rate among all Job Corps centers was 65.4%.

A Labor spokesperson provided the following statement to the Standard-Examiner: “The Department of Labor is working closely with the Department of Justice to evaluate and comply with the temporary restraining order. We remain confident that our actions are consistent with the law.”

Formed in 1964, the Job Corps program serves to provide education, vocational training and support services for youth aged 16 to 24. There are more than 120 Job Corps centers nationwide serving over 50,000 students annually.

“Job Corps provides services that few other programs can match, especially for young people who didn’t graduate from high school and those who face other serious barriers including disabilities and homelessness,” Lawhead said in the email.

The Clearfield campus — which opened in 1966 and has been operated by MTC since 1981 — currently has approximately 400 students, per Lawhead, who said that some students left following the Department of Labor announcement. The average number of students on campus during normal conditions fluctuates between 800 and 1,000. Meanwhile, more than 350 staff members are employed by the facility.

“The Clearfield center serves students from all over the nation and is one of two advanced training (AT) Job Corps centers in the country, providing higher levels of training to students from across the U.S.,” Lawhead said in the email. “The Clearfield center is also one of Toyota’s few T-TEN training schools and provides students with hands-on automotive technician training on Toyota and Lexus vehicles as they earn ASE and Toyota/Lexus technician training certifications. The Clearfield center also recently launched a new partnership with Mercedes-Benz USA to provide specific, hands-on training to students in the automotive program.”

For more information about supporting Job Corps, go to https://savejobcorps.com/.