WASHINGTON – Recently laid-off workers in six Maine counties – including former Stinson Seafood employees – are targets of a $1 million federal grant announced Thursday.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao participated in a staged event at the Labor Department with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to announce the money, which is supposed to help fund a variety of retraining programs, job searches, relocation efforts and other support services.

Chao is a Republican, and GOP incumbent Collins is seeking a second term this year.

The money will be distributed as a national emergency grant and will be aimed at helping up to 1,000 laid-off workers in Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, Waldo, and York counties find new jobs.

“These grants are particularly targeted to help workers who have been laid off for a variety of reasons,” Collins said, explaining that the money can be “tailored” to the special needs of the workers.

“The beauty of these grants is that they allow us to provide assistance that really meets the needs of that individual worker,” she said. “One worker may need the help in getting a graduate equivalency degree, another may need assistance in child care or transportation assistance so they can go back to school.”

Chao credited Collins with taking the lead in pushing for the grant before posing for photographs with the senator and holding up a large, poster-sized $1 million check made out to the Maine Department of Labor.

“Your efforts to procure the funding have been unwavering and very persistent,” Chao said to Collins. “You have been a tenacious and strong advocate for approval of this grant.”

Both Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, took part in lobbying for the grant. Snowe was not present during the Thursday’s announcement at the Labor Department.

The grant will be administered through the Coastal Counties Workforce Investment Board and targeted toward laid-off workers from E-M Solutions in Westbrook; Fairchild Semiconductor in South Portland; DeLorme in Yarmouth; Spinnaker Coating in Westbrook; Bindley-Western Industries in Westbrook; L.L. Bean in Freeport; Stinson Seafood in Belfast and Lubec; DMI Beacon in Portland; Bath Iron Works; AVX Tantalum in Biddeford; and Tenneford Weaving in Sanford.

The Labor Department has distributed a total of $325 million in NEG money this year, of which Maine has received $5.9 million.

Other recent grants include $134,959 to assist workers laid off by the closure of Saucony Inc., in Bangor; $1 million in funding for fishermen who have lost their jobs because of federally ordered conservation efforts; and $338,889 for workers in western parts of the state.

National emergency grants must first be applied for by the state and are generally approved when 50 or more workers are laid off at a single employment site or there are multiple layoffs in a community that significantly increase the level of local unemployment. The secretary of labor exercises final approval of the grants.

While the unemployment rate in Maine has maintained a level of just over 4 percent in the past year, there are pockets in the state that have reached 10 percent because of layoffs, according to Maine Department of Labor spokesman Adam Fisher.