Federal pandemic unemployment assistance is scheduled to dry up by the first week of September, and thousands of people are still expected to be out of work.

But there's a new program, "Bisnes Para i Taotao," is set to launch that will provide subsidies to local companies so that they can hire more employees.

The subsidy program was first announced by the governor at an economic forum last week. Labor Director Dave Dell'Isola provided more details during a presentation before the Chamber of Commerce.

"If you hire an unemployed person, and it doesn't have to be PUA or because of COVID," he said. "Any unemployed person we will subsidize you at $9.25 an hour for the first 480 hours, which comes out full time three months. This is for permanent employment. I don't want you to hire and then get rid of them. That's not what this is about."

Funding will be made available for both small and larger businesses. Dell'Isola says they're still working details such as how to equitably distribute the subsidies so that, for example, a few hotels don't get the bulk of the money by hiring hundreds of workers.

"The governor liked this idea, but like anything else she's being inundated with a lot of different ideas," Dell'Isola said. "This is one of her ideas so I feel very comfortable that we're gonna get some funding. How much funding I'm not sure. I asked her that I'd like to help out about 5,000 or 6,000 people. That comes out to about $24 to $30 million."

He says they're also deciding whether to advance the money or reimburse employers.

"I know everybody likes to get it ahead of time," Dell'Isola said. "That kind of opens up the fraud a little more, I'm gonna hire three ghost employees, I don't like to think that way but learning from pua that is a reality when it comes to the smaller businesses."

He says the first payouts in the 'Bisnes Para i Taotao program could come by October.