The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday announced a $22 million grant to assist approximately 7,400 workers in the New York, Connecticut and New Jersey area affected by layoffs in the financial industry.

The department said it will release initially $10.9 million of the $22 million in national emergency grants; New Jersey will receive nearly $2.8 million of this amount. The state can apply for additional funding based on a demonstrated need for continued assistance, the department said.

“We’re very pleased that the national government has recognized the severity of the downturn in our regional economy and how many jobs are tied to financial services — not only directly, but indirectly,” David Socolow, commissioner of the state Department of Labor, said this afternoon. “Providing special funds over and above our regular job training and worker assistance money targeted at this need will make an enormous difference in trying to help workers get back on their feet.”

The state has proposed spending some of the grant money on programs that would train financial industry workers affected by layoffs to become green energy analysts, mathematics teachers and project managers, Socolow said. The funding also would go toward career counseling and job match assistance.

“You want to get people re-employed quickly, to avoid even more economic dislocation,” Socolow said. “With dislocated workers, you want to make sure that from the beginning of their loss of work that they’re thinking more broadly than just the field they came out of.”

Socolow said the department will begin applying the grant money immediately toward assisting downsized financial workers, and expects to have all of the money committed to job training and other programs within nine months.