This semester, Sacramento State’s College of Continuing Education offered two new programs to help address the 12 percent unemployment rate in Sacramento County.

The two programs, the Sustainable Facilities Management and the Prehospital Education program, plan to provide training to adults who want to go back to school and gain marketable skills.

The Sustainable Facilities Management program specializes in construction while the Prehospital Education program focuses on emergency medical service fields.

Industry projections by the California Employment Development Department indicate that jobs in both fields are expected to increase in the coming years in Sacramento County and surrounding areas.

“The labor market says that there’ll be a 16 percent increase in 2014 in jobs in the (emergency medical services) field,” said Derek Parker, director of the Prehospital Education program. “It just depends on how picky they (students) are or where they want to go.”

By 2016, jobs for construction managers are expected to increase by 14 percent and for construction laborers by 12 percent.

The Sustainable Facilities Management program is offered in partnership with the Sacramento Employment Training Agency. It plans to provide retraining to unemployed workers and employees who have experience working in the construction industry. These workers include carpenters, construction managers and supervisors, facility managers, custodians and engineers.

“Part of the plan is to develop partnerships and networks with employers who have these types of positions available,” said Terri Carpenter, SETA’s spokesperson.

SETA received about $7 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. About $5 million will be allocated to the retraining of dislocated workers in the area, according to the Sacramento County website.

The Sustainable Facilities Management program will be funded by a $200,000 stimulus grant awarded to the College of Continuing Education through SETA.

It includes skills required in today’s facilities management, with a focus on reducing the carbon footprint of buildings, said Tonii Ramirez, senior program coordinator with the CCE.

“This particular program is very important because being green has become mainstream in our society,” Ramirez said. “What the program does is it gives standards and frameworks of operating efficiencies as far as being green goes.”

Kristine Guerra can be reached at [email protected].