And things don't necessarily look brighter for creating quality jobs in the near future, even in what are considered growth industries. In health care, for example, while the coming shift to electronic medical record-keeping has been touted as creating new jobs, Delgado is less sure. "We've done our research, and we're not convinced that there are going to be that many jobs for low-income New Yorkers in that field," she says. Instead, she expects, current medical workers will likely be retrained to take the new positions. "We're seeing that a lot of hospitals are still laying people off, and there are still lots of closures."
City Limits Magazine
May 2010:
The Black Depression
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The much-hyped "green jobs" sector holds potentially more promise, according to Delgado. "Two years ago, I would have told you there are no green jobs," she admits, believing that those positions, too, would be filled by retrained current workers. But she's since changed her mind: Subsidies in the 2009 federal stimulus package for low-income homeowners to weatherize their homes will require 45,000 housing units to be upgraded in the state in the next two years, she says; after that, Bloomberg's PLANYC goal of mandating building retrofits is expected to create 15,000 permanent jobs. (Though the mayor's proposed requirement that all large buildings conduct energy-efficiency renovations was dropped after resistance from landlords, other green policies remain in place.
"There's a significant amount of work to be done, and there's not necessarily a trained and prepared labor force who will be available to take up this expansion of work," says Delgado. Seedco has now launched a small training program, funded with stimulus dollars through the state Department of Labor, to teach weatherization skills to 110 clients culminating in a three- to six-month internship that will hopefully lead to permanent employment.
For Diamond, the fact that people are still being placed into jobs, even if more poorly paid ones, is still a positive. "I think it does reinforce the strength of our overall program, that even in difficult times, both our workers and our partner vendors are still giving out the message that people must go to work, which I think is important. I worry sometimes that people will sort of give up and throw up their hands, but that's not happened." (One reason agencies like Seedco don't give up, he admits: "Our vendors are paid only if they get people jobs. So they can't ride out the recession.")
Delgado says the bigger problem isn't getting people into jobs, but what they do next. "How do you really ensure ongoing success for folks? That's the big question right now."
