To Combat Joblessness

It is no secret that New York City suffers greater joblessness than the nation as a whole, but the situation here for African American men is appalling - nearly 40 percent of adult black men in New York City were jobless in 2004.

Over the past decade, African American men have steadily lost ground in jobholding relative to other groups. And the current economic recovery is unlikely to alleviate their high levels of joblessness.

A word about the difference between unemployment and joblessness. The unemployment rate is a measurement of people actively looking for a job. Joblessness is a measure of all those without a job, which takes into account the many people who have simply given up looking for work.

The difference is startling: The official average unemployment rate for black men in New York City in 2004 was 11 percent. The jobless rate was 39.3 percent. That’s the percentage of black men in New York City ages 16 to 64 who were without a job.

A report (PDF) released last year by the Community Service Society revealed that black and Latino youth – ages 16 to 24 - were more than twice as likely to be out of school and out of work than white youth - disengaged from any framework that would provide them with a future. In total, 170,000 of New York City’s young people find themselves in this situation.

Connection between
education and jobs

There is a direct connection between the high numbers of New York City’s black and Latino young males who are neither in school nor in the labor market and the low rates of jobholding among the city’s black men.

The city’s high schools do not connect to the needs of its students. The schools don’t provide the instruction necessary for most students to achieve standards of academic success. The result is that a large portion of the student population just gives up on school. Almost half of students in the city’s high schools drop out before graduation. Of those that do graduate, less than 10 percent of black and Latino students earn a Regents diploma, certification of an education adequate enough to hold a decent-paying job.

Beyond education, there is another factor working against black men. The Justice Department estimates that one-third of black males will go to prison during their lifetimes. In New York State, a prison record disqualifies a person from holding all sorts of jobs, including some that make no sense at all.

Plan of Action

There are actions that can be taken to help tackle the problem of chronic unemployment among people of color. We must start with an overhaul of the educational system.
In one of our recent surveys, nine out of 10 respondents supported quality technical education programs in high schools. A functioning technical and vocational education curriculum is a resource that could help save many young people who are unprepared for most jobs in a changing economy.

The city recently proposed a new vocational education initiative. Given the extent of the problem and the poor state of vocational education in our schools, this must be geared to labor market realities and extensive enough to make a real difference.

In the coming years, there will be a number of large construction projects in the city. These will bring billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the construction industry. We will need to decide which workers will benefit from the job and training opportunities that will be created.

A partial response is the Mayor’s Commission on Construction Opportunity, which was created to ensure that all New Yorkers, especially people of color and new high school graduates, can gain access to good construction jobs. The construction unions have agreed to commit specific percentages of apprenticeship slots targeting demographic groups. The city will create two new high schools dedicated to engineering and building trades curriculums.

Job Training Funds

In addition, the City Council, in direct response to our research on black male joblessness (PDF) allocated $10 million for job training for the chronically unemployed last year and another $18 million in its latest budget. This should be just a start in funding job training programs.

We also need to create new pathways back to school to give the huge number of high school dropouts a second chance at an adequate education. And the state must remove unwarranted – and self-defeating – barriers to jobs for people with criminal records.

At first glance, this may seem like a problem for a specific group of New Yorkers. But, in fact, it affects all of us. Joblessness of this magnitude and duration harms individuals, destroys families, and is corrosive to communities.

From the New York Amsterdam News
February 23 - March 1, 2006