COVID Economic Recovery Demands Reinvestment in Job Training and Creative Solutions

CWE partners like Nontraditional Employment for Women provide the job training and placement services that workers will need to adapt to the post-COVID economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a twin public health and economic crisis across the globe. To understand the economic trends that have come out of the pandemic and what response is needed in New York, the State Assembly Labor Committee held a hearing on November 15th.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to have a devastating impact on the economy and far-reaching impacts for workers in New York state,” said Assembly Labor Committee Chair Latoya Joyner, as reported in HudsonValley360. “Shutdowns and working conditions resulting from the pandemic have also caused many displaced workers to leave their previous employment to seek different types of work, leading to labor shortages in industries that were once considered essential at the height of the pandemic.”

Consortium for Worker Education President Joe McDermott testified before the committee about how workers are impacted and the community organizations and unions on the ground who are helping workers build skills and get jobs.

New York is among the hardest hit states, with an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent, compared to 4.6 percent nationally. Some of New York’s core industries, like hospitality and tourism, have been uniquely undermined by the pandemic. During past crises, CWE has shown that government and civic action can help workers push through those headwinds, but with 450,000 local workers expected to still be out of a job into next year, a large intervention is needed.

As the impact of the growing global pandemic was coming into focus in 2020, CWE partnered with James Parrott and the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs (CNYCA) to study how workers were affected and develop policy recommendations, resulting in five citywide reports and bimonthly updates.

Parrott, who testified before McDermott at the hearing, said that even New York’s high unemployment rate does not show the true scale of the problem.

“New York state’s current unemployment rate understates the real extent of unemployment to exclude those who have left the labor force,” Parrott testified. Also, “it doesn’t reflect the fact that many have returned to work ... only part-time.”

The reports from CWE and CNYCA included a survey of Astoria workers which is a first-of-its-kind study of pandemic impacts at the neighborhood level.

CWE’s work in Astoria shows that supporting workers is only half of what’s necessary to put the local economy back together.

“While CWE and its partners are maintaining our efforts in Astoria for training and placement, it is clear that the need for a ‘prime the pump’ infusion for small businesses is acute: to stay open, retain workers, and to bring back and hire new workers,” McDermott told legislators.

After 9/11, CWE led a massive program to support displaced workers that included wage subsidies for small businesses, which proved essential in bringing back jobs.

“Not only does wage subsidy save and create jobs, it saves a large number of small businesses whose salaries in turn affect other small businesses,” said McDermott. So giving aid to one business also supports the businesses next door.

CWE and its partner network of unions and community-based organizations developed a COVID Workforce Plan to eventually seek stimulus money for training, job placements, and a small business wage subsidy.

While New Yorkers want to get back to normal, the jobs that many workers left last spring will be different than the ones they return to. Small business closures, continuing high unemployment in key sectors, and the rise of remote work all demand creative solutions and more funding for job training.

CWE’s Astoria survey found that many New York workers were uncertain about their employment future. Only 42 percent of dislocated Astoria workers think that they will be able to return to the same employer post-pandemic, while 20 percent think they will have to change occupations.

Every year, CWE, with the support of New York state and city grants, works with community partners to get workers the help they need to build skills and get or keep the careers that they want. Over the last year, those programs delivered services to 43,000 workers in 4,000 training classes at CWE and affiliated community-based organizations. Demand for these services will only increase as workers seek jobs in new industries.

In 2019, CWE launched the Astoria Workers Initiative which included organizing workers with similar skills - like bartenders, bookkeepers, and gig workers - into associations that would allow them to collectively support each other, build toward worker co-ops, or get union protections. The pandemic’s changes to work give greater urgency to new thinking about what workforce programs workers need to succeed.

CWE will keep advocating for funding programs of the scope that is needed for workers to recover from pandemic job displacements, says McDermott.

“This pandemic is not over and the income inequality that was so apparent before the pandemic has greatly increased.”