Mayor Adams speaks at a "hiring hall" (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Mayor Adams’ 2023 State of the City address had a theme. He called it the Working People’s Agenda. Adams asserted that job development, especially for the Black community, would be a top priority. 

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Mayor Adams at a youth employment event (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

The New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) is struggling to fill and expand career programs dedicated to unemployed, out-of-school youth, despite a dramatic increase in their numbers during the pandemic.

According to a recent report from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, unemployment among city residents aged 16 to 24 hit 17.9% in October 2022, a nearly 8 point

On the job (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

The New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) is preparing to publish its latest annual workforce report, which details the demographics of the city government’s massive workforce and trends in employee turnover. But the report is already obsolete, given it is to cover the 2020 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and will fail to shine a light on how the municipal workforce has changed in the last two years.

DCAS’ report, which was most recently published last year and covered the

On the job (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City has recovered many of the jobs lost at the height of the covid pandemic and some industries have expanded in the shifting economic landscape. But unemployment and inequality remain high, and there is too often a mismatch between employers seeking a workforce to power growth in areas like health care, tech, and life sciences and those in need of jobs. It is a challenge and opportunity Mayor Eric Adams discussed regularly when he was running

Mayor Adams visits the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities (photo: @NYCDisabilities)

New York City has an historic opportunity to engage people with disabilities more fully in the workforce. With nearly1 million New Yorkers living with a disability, seizing the opportunity should be a top priority. It’s time to build a pipeline to address the needs of employers and New Yorkers with disabilities.

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Opening for business (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office)

The pandemic has produced both soaring unemployment in New York City and a host of booming industries hungry for employees. Business leaders and the young administration of Mayor Eric Adams, alike, are looking to spend significant resources to connect candidates to jobs in traditional and emerging sectors. But executives are beginning to see one long-time driver of economic inequality as a particular barrier to tapping New York's 250,000-strong unemployed workforce: the college degree

Gov. Hochul at an announcement (photo: Office of Governor Hochul)

Governor Kathy Hochul announced the launch of a new state office Tuesday intended to spearhead regional workforce development initiatives across New York.

The Office of Strategic Workforce Development will be housed under Empire State Development (ESD), the state entity responsible for most major economic development projects. The arrangement is intended to coordinate workforce training programs with employers' needs, especially in growing sectors, as New York continues its economic recovery from the devastation of the

Mayor Adams visits a factory (photo: Michael

Gov. Hochul with state employees (photo: Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)

Despite recruitment and retention challenges, state agencies will be able to achieve Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to return staffing to pre-pandemic levels, officials testified Monday at a legislative budget hearing.

"I believe that all agencies will be able to attain that goal," said Acting Commissioner of the Department of Civil Service Rebecca Corso, referring to the governor’s vision for next fiscal year, which begins April

Mayor Adams at a small business (photo: office of Eric Adams)

New York City’s wounded economy and the rise and fall of key sectors during the pandemic has heightened pre-pandemic concerns about the match between the labor needs of employers and the skills of hundreds of thousands of jobseekers. Eric Adams made better preparing the city's workforce a major area of focus as he pitched his vision of the city's recovery to New Yorkers in his successful campaign for mayor.

"We are going to launch an unprecedented job program to link

NYC resources for city residents in need (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

As the economic recovery from the covid pandemic continues to change the job market, experts are looking across the Hudson at a new model to get New York City's workforce ready for the leading sectors of the future.

In June, New Jersey launched Pay It Forward, a bond initiative to fund workforce training programs for good-paying jobs in growing industries as part of an effort to address the lack of short-term education options for low-income residents. Economists and

New York City resource fair (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

As New York City government changes land use rules and invests in communities through rezonings, it should make workforce development a key piece of the equation, according to a new report recently released by the Center for an Urban Future and JobsFirstNYC, two non-profit organizations focused on equitable growth in the city. This is especially true, the report says, given the economic impacts of the pandemic, whereby the city is still down roughly 500,000 jobs.

“Rezonings, which by definition are

Construction workers (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)

With the federal infrastructure bill now law, New York is primed to receive more than $100 billion in direct investment in public works projects across the state, inclusive of upgrades to mass transit systems, roads, highways, and bridges, and other essential and critical elements of New York’s future.

The diverse array of infrastructure projects soon to break ground statewide also comes with a greater demand for skilled work – work that members of the unionized construction

Workforce development (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Invest in Skills New York City, a citywide coalition part of a state group focused on prioritizing workforce development, recently released a report examining how the city’s workforce development funding is spent and issuing recommendations for the next mayor to improve how that work feeds the city’s economic recovery from the devastation of the covid pandemic.

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NYC Youth (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

As New York City emerges from the pandemic and prepares for a new Mayor and City Council, elected officials must pursue policies that will make our city more equitable and prosperous. This is the moment to collectively invest in the talent and professional skills of New York City’s home-grown, diverse, and dynamic young people and to shift how we think about the relationship between schooling and workforce development.

Let’s cultivate our best resources -- New York City

Workers rebuilding New York (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

To The Editor:

A recent op-ed published at Gotham Gazette, co-authored by David Meade, executive director of Building Skills New York, was riddled with classic smoke and mirrors. One might be tempted to believe that Building Skills offers a chance to build public infrastructure with skilled training, safe career pathways, and

City resources on offer (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

The New York City Inclusive Growth Initiative -- an effort organized by three major nonprofit groups -- this week released a “blueprint” of 50-plus recommendations for the next Mayor and City Council to guide an equitable recovery from the devastating covid pandemic. Noting the propensity for change during times of crisis and the history of disasters like Hurricane Sandy and the

Robotics and tech ed (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)

With more than half-a-million New Yorkers out of work amid a painful economic downturn, the continued growth of tech positions stands out as a beacon of economic recovery. Connecting more residents with these jobs presents an important opportunity for the next mayor to get New Yorkers working again.

Despite months of grim economic news, tech firms have continued to double down on New York City. Over the past year, companies including Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix have signed new

Workplace dynamics are changing (photo: Philip Kamrass/Governor's Office)

Three Democratic candidates for mayor of New York City spoke at a forum Wednesday evening about their visions for restoring and enhancing the city's workforce going into the pandemic recovery.

Eric Adams, Shaun Donovan, and Kathryn Garcia -- all considered among the top eight leading candidates in the competitive primary race and all veterans of New York City government -- discussed how they would harness the city's resources to create quality jobs in the hour-long forum,

Resource Fair (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

With the announcement Friday of a $155 million investment in small businesses, including $5.5 million for workforce development programming, Mayor Bill de Blasio staked a foothold along a critical frontier in New York City's pandemic recovery: preparing workers for the changing economy.

The city's economy was devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the unemployment rate jumping fivefold to a high of over 20% last June. In-person jobs have contracted significantly, especially in hospitality, nightlife, retail, and

Council Member Paul Vallone (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The City Council’s committees on economic development and small business met last week for an oversight hearing to assess how the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the city Department of Small Business Services (SBS), and the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development have adjusted their programming because of COVID-19 and discuss what they’re doing to promote equity across the five boroughs.

According to the New York State

CUNY grads (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer proposed a plan Wednesday to revamp the city's workforce development strategy, including by making CUNY community colleges tuition-free and expanding job training opportunities for people at career crossroads.

The pandemic has decimated jobs in New York City -- with unemployment at roughly 16%, though some estimates say the “real” figure is much higher -- and shifted forecasts about the future of industries across the board. Advocates and policymakers are looking for ways to

Mayor de Blasio at Google in Manhattan (photo: Mayoral Photography Office)

A series of new reports commissioned by the de Blasio administration to examine ways to develop a more inclusive and robust workforce, particularly in New York City's growing tech sector, lays out both big opportunities and high barriers to achieve them.

The studies, recently published by the New York City Economic Development Corporation but conducted largely before the pandemic-spurred recession, were designed and conducted by nonprofits, many of which run workforce development programs. Their

A resource fair (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ mayoral Photography Office)

Getting people back to work safely after the record-breaking job losses seen during the pandemic is on everyone’s mind. While this will require a multi-faceted approach, the frontline workforce field, i.e. the professionals responsible for training and connecting marginalized jobseekers with employers

(photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

The Coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on New York City’s economy and has revealed, and exacerbated, the existing socioeconomic disparities that afflict communities of color in the city. As Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration looks to ensure a fair recovery that focuses on racial equity, a new report shows that there are deep disparities in income and employment for Black New Yorkers that