The world's borough has the nation's most jobless

 

Queens Chronicle

 In its Dec. 21 update, the New York State Department of Labor reported that, in New York City, the nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate has continued its decline, dropping from 8.4 percent in October to 8 percent in November. In Queens specifically, the same rate dropped from 8.1 percent in October to 7.7 percent in November. In November of 2020, Queens’ unemployment had been 11.5 percent.

While improved, both the Queens and citywide unemployment rates are still considerably higher than those of New York State and of the nation, which decreased from 5.9 percent in October to 5.5 percent in November and 4.3 percent to 3.9 percent, respectively.

So, why is the unemployment rate so much higher in New York City and Queens than it is state and nationwide?

St. John’s University Professor of Economics Dr. Charles Clark said that one answer to point to might be the so-called “Great Resignation”: During the past year of the pandemic, people across the nation have been quitting their jobs en masse in search of something better.

Forest Hills Chamber of Commerce President Leslie Brown noted such trends in her area. “As we know many people did not return to the workforce after the unemployment Covid-19 benefits ended,” she told the Chronicle. “There were numerous reasons for this such as low minimum wage, lack of child care, health concerns [and] lifestyle changes.”

But according to Clark, the Great Resignation is not new.

“In terms of the number of people voluntarily leaving jobs, that has been steadily growing for a very long time,” he told the Chronicle.

More specifically, he told the Chronicle, in January 2011, approximately 1.8 million Americans in nonfarm industries quit their jobs. As per the trend, that number had risen to more than 3.3 million by January 2021, as graphed below.

None of that, however, explains why unemployment is higher across Queens than it is state- or nationwide. Clark speculated that boroughs like Queens and the Bronx might see higher rates because of their higher immigrant populations.

Queens Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Grech pointed to the large hit that the hospitality industry has taken during the pandemic.

“I think a lot of people that work in that industry have decided to find another career choice,” he told the Chronicle. “At the Queen’s Chamber of Commerce, we want to double down on workforce development, to make sure that those businesses — hotels and hospitality — have a regular supply chain, so to speak, of trained people to go into those jobs as things continue to get better.”

Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District Executive Director Ted Renz also identified restaurant and retail as two sectors that have struggled to maintain staff; accordingly, individual businesses have changed their schedules.

“I’ve noticed that a number of retailers are closed, or some are closed different days, or they’re not open at all. Some are opening later,” he told the Chronicle.

According to the state Department of Labor’s preliminary numbers, prior to Omicron, restaurant employment increased in New York City from 1.894 million jobs to 1.907 million between October and November, a 0.69 percent increase.

Cuomo's requiem for restaurants

 

 NY Times

 

Indoor dining will once again be barred in New York City restaurants starting on Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Friday, a significant reversal of the city’s reopening that comes as officials try to halt the escalation of a second wave of the coronavirus.

The decision, which Mr. Cuomo earlier this week suggested was all but certain, is a crushing blow to the city’s restaurant industry, a vital economic pillar that has been struggling all year in the face of pandemic restrictions and a national recession.

As he announced the new restrictions, the governor called on federal lawmakers to provide relief to the hospitality industry. Congressional leaders have struggled to reach an agreement on a new economic stimulus package.

 

“The federal government must provide relief to these bars and restaurants in this next package,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference.

For months, New York City’s restaurant owners have warned that their businesses, many of which operate on tight margins in the best of times, are on the edge of financial collapse. Thousands of employees, many of them low-wage workers, have been laid off since March, and their jobs have yet to fully return.

The industry’s anxieties are only mounting as winter approaches and frigid temperatures threaten to deter customers from dining outdoors. Industry groups have called repeatedly for federal or state financial assistance, with restaurant and bar owners watching nervously as stimulus talks drag on in Washington.

500,000

 

 NY Post

 More than 500,000 New York City residents are still unemployed six months into the lingering coronavirus pandemic, a sobering new report released Tuesday revealed.

The state Labor Department data showed that 14 percent of city residents — one in 7 — were unemployed in September. That’s 538,694 Big Apple residents.

The jobless rate is ten percentage points higher than in September of 2019, when the city unemployment rate was just 3.7 percent.

Still, the rate was a slight improvement from August, when 16 percent or 638,767 residents were jobless.

The worst of the pandemic’s impact on jobs was in June, when 20 percent or 810,177 city residents were unemployed.

New York State’s unemployment rate decreased from 12.5% in August to 9.7% in September, a noticeable bump.

But New York State’s unemployment rate of 9.7 percent was considerably higher than the national jobless rate of 7.9 percent, and the sixth highest among states and 5.8 percentage points higher than the Empire State’s unemployment rate a year earlier, noted E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy.

Food pantry lines are getting more populated in Ozone Park

 

 

Queens Chronicle

The weekly food pantry that began in a Rockaway Boulevard parking lot in Ozone Park last summer passed a sobering benchmark this week.

For the first time, more than 1,000 people showed up for food.

“There’s a need, that’s all I can tell you,” said Sam Esposito, founder of the upstart Ozone Park Residents Block Association, which, with the local Kiwanis Club and members of the civilian patrol group, started the Saturday-morning food pantry last July.

“Think about it — people don’t start lining up at 6 o’clock in the morning unless there is a need. There’s a lot of unemployment,” he said. “Everybody hits bottom.”

When the pantry first opened, barely 100 people showed up for food allotments, much of it bought from local supermarkets, according to Esposito.

Since the beginning of the pandemic last March, established food pantries across Queens have seen the numbers of the people they serve skyrocket.

Food operations sponsored by churches and civic groups were nearly overwhelmed by needy families who turned to them by the thousands following the layoffs and business shutdowns of May and June.

In some parts of Queens, new food operations sprang up to help meet the need.

The new pantries could not get certified by the city fast enough to tap into the established distribution system that helps supply the older operations.

Since August, larger, city-sanctioned pantries in Brooklyn and Queens have quietly been supplying the Ozone Park pantry with fresh produce, milk, packaged food, necessities like baby diapers and the like, said Mohammad Kahn, OZPKRBA’s executive director.

“All the pantries order extra for us,” said Esposito. “Every Tuesday and Wednesday, they call and say come and get it.

“Other than that, no one wants to help us.”

 Thought I put this out there too:

But on Sundays, volunteers organize pop-up pantries at different locations around Ozone Park to distribute hundreds of so-called “Trump boxes” — food boxes, each containing a letter signed by the president bought and distributed under a $4-billion U.S. Department of Agriculture program since last August.

This is what's messed up about the guy. Providing these services shows he's helping the poor get through this pandemic, there's absolutely no need for self-promotion. Be humble, Mr. President.

 

It's all about the incentives

From Crains:

When Cumberland Packing Corp. said it would stop production at Sweet’N Low’s Brooklyn Navy Yard factory and lay off 320 people, the de Blasio administration did nothing. Public Advocate Letitia James demanded action, but the president of the Navy Yard, saying he was speaking for City Hall, issued a statement saying it was “unfortunate the global economic conditions in their industry forced [this] difficult decision to relocate.”

What Cumberland shows is that if the de Blasio administration’s goal is to grow the city’s manufacturing sector—and that’s what the mayor said last year—it can’t be done without incentives.

Weiner let go by PR firm

From the NY Post:

Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner is out of work again after just two months on the job at the powerhouse public-relations firm MWW.

According to an internal memo from MWW chief Michael Kempner, Weiner was a victim of the media who left on his own accord to start up his own company and that “He understands that his presence here has created noise and distraction that just isn’t helpful.”

Weiner, however, criticized the memo, saying he didn’t “express any of those sentiments” expressed by Kempner.

“I read the mww statement when they sent it to staff,” Weiner wrote in a Twitter message to PoliticoNJ. “I was either not consulted or ignored on every part of this excellent summer adventure.”

De Blasio enables never-ending welfare cycle

From City Journal:

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is proposing a full employment program for government-funded social-service workers. In the process, he will likely gut one of the most successful welfare-to-work initiatives in the country, and possibly return New York to its former status of America’s dependency capital, when one in seven New Yorkers were on the dole. The city’s gargantuan welfare agency, the Human Resources Administration, has just issued its “new vision for employment and education services.” Welfare users will no longer be expected to immediately look for and take a job in exchange for taxpayer support, an expectation that was the key breakthrough of welfare reform. Instead, welfare recipients will serve indefinitely as receptacles for an endless array of taxpayer-supported services.

Welfare applicants and recipients entering this complex new world of services will go through a three-tier assessment process. Those recipients deemed “fully employable” by HRA will get . . . not a job, but more services! They will be referred to off-site “contractor locations,” where the contractors will provide “in-depth assessments and direct clients to the proper set of services that are tailored to individualized strengths, interests, and needs.”

Does the “fully employable”welfare recipient now start looking for, or working in, a job? Not necessarily. According to HRA’s planners, “Individuals may then be referred to a combination of services,” which might include CareerBridge, a “new set of HRA contracted services for contextualized adult basic education, high school equivalency preparation, bridge training, English as a Second Language, and vocational training”; and CareerAdvance, “for clients who are job-ready, have high levels of skills/education, and/or others whose personal goals are immediate employment will be referred to CareerAdvance contractors to receive services.”

In a word, services.

Why can't we do this here?

From NBC:

There's a new effort to clean the bushes and branches that have overgrown outside several abandoned homes in East Orange. The program not only makes the neighborhood look nicer, but also gives unemployment residents a chance to work. Brian Thompson reports.

Because what NYC needs is more people on welfare

From the NY Post:

Welfare is making a comeback under Mayor de Blasio, with 13,000 more New Yorkers on the dole by the end of his first year in office, according to a new report obtained by The Post.

Enrollment in the city’s cash ­assistance program swelled by 4 percent in 2014 to 352,596 — one of the biggest increases in more than a decade, the Manhattan Institute found.

The rise comes even as the city’s economy has prospered — some 90,000 jobs were added in 2014, according to the “Poverty and Progress in New York” report ­being released Tuesday.

“If government dependence on welfare is rising in a good economy, what’s going to happen in a bad economy?” wondered study author Stephen Eide, who said the trend was antithetical to data dating back to around 1960.

The surprising uptick, reformers say, is partly by design. De Blasio’s pick to head the $10 billion Human Resources Administration, Steven Banks, is a proponent of loosening welfare restrictions.

With Banks at the helm, the HRA launched a series of sweeping changes in its state-approved Biennial Employment Plan, including changing requirements for welfare recipients with kids younger than 4 years old. Recipients previously had to clock a 35-hour workweek to get their checks.

Welfare recipients can now substitute full-time education — ­including GED preparation — for their work requirement.

The de Blasio administration is also phasing out the Giuliani-era Work Experience Program, which gave welfare recipients jobs in city agencies, in favor of “additional job search, work study or internships for cash assistance clients with recent work histories or with advanced degrees,” the report notes.

Weiner to open Rockaway restaurant

From AM-NY:

Anthony Weiner is going from politics to pots and pans by eyeing a nonprofit restaurant to help the Rockaways recover from Superstorm Sandy.

The ex-congressman, who has been volunteering in the neighborhood, will help oversee the project, which is in its very early stages.

In addition to providing residents with a new grub site, the "Rockaway Restoration Kitchen" will train unemployed New Yorkers in culinary skills that they can use for food industry jobs, the project's website said.

Weiner, 49, was listed as administrator for an idealist.org job listing for the group's executive director. The project, first reported by the Rockaway Times on Thursday, said Weiner, who ran for mayor last year, is still looking for a location.

Weiner declined to give details to amNewYork about his role with the kitchen but told the Daily News, "residents need help developing skills to lift them out of unemployment."

"This project is at the very earliest stages of trying to tackle these challenges," he told the paper.

The job listing expires on Aug. 31 and the group's website is still under construction. But it did list some details of the program.

Rockaway Restoration Kitchen will "provide a comfortable neighborhood restaurant with healthy, locally sourced food that satisfies the hunger of Rockaway residents." The 13-week training program will help unemployed residents, particularly those with barriers to job placement such as incarceration or disability, with hands-on cooking training and professional assistance.

Whitestone post office may lose personnel

From the Queens Courier:

The United States Postal Service (USPS) plans to ship jobs from its Whitestone processing facility as part of ongoing nationwide consolidation of its centers to stay financially afloat.

The mail service intends to consolidate up to 82 facilities, including the Queens center on 20th Avenue, beginning January 2015 to continue its plan to cut losses, which was approved in 2011. The initiative is projected to save the cash-strapped delivery service more than $3.5 billion in the next five years, according to the USPS.

There are currently 1,015 employees at the Whitestone facility, and it’s yet to be determined how many employees will be affected, a representative for the organization said.

You just can't grow your business here

From Crains:

One Queens-based e-commerce startup is poised to grow aggressively over the next few years, and they have found just the place to do it: Ohio.

Gwynnie Bee, a subscription service for the lease and sale of plus-size women's apparel, reportedly plans to add 400 new positions over the next few years at a new 100,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution facility on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio. The company's executive and marketing operations will remain in New York City, where Gwynnie Bee will still be officially headquartered, but the 42 warehouse and distribution workers at the company's current Long Island City warehouse will be laid off in July.

"Labor is 30% cheaper there than here," [VP of Operations Robert Escobar] said. "In New York, you pay someone $15 an hour and they struggle to make ends meet. In Ohio, you pay someone $12 an hour and they can have a mortgage."

That dynamic was apparently such a concern for Gwynnie Bee that it never reached out to any city agency for a counter-offer on what Columbus 2020 was offering. To hear Mr. Escobar tell it, that would have been a waste of time for all involved as the idea of relocating its warehousing and distribution was necessary in order for the company to grow.

Gwynnie Bee is not closing the door on returning its logistics to the New York area, but Mr. Escobar said the company would be more likely to do so upstate or in New Jersey.

Unemployment is up in NYC

From Crains:

The city's unemployment rate ticked up slightly in August to 8.6% from 8.4% in July as more New Yorkers entered the labor market looking for work, according to data released Thursday from the state Labor Department.

The unemployment rate is down from 9.3% a year ago thanks to steady private sector job growth—84,700 positions or 2.5% growth.

New York state's unemployment rate also rose slightly in August, to 7.6% from 7.5%. Both city and state trailed the national unemployment rate, which dropped slightly to 7.3% from 7.4%.

While the city's economy is creating jobs, the positions are not improving household income. Median household income in the New York Metropolitan area stayed flat between 2011 and 2012, Census figures released Wednesday showed. Meanwhile, median household income statewide declined slightly from 2000.

Rikers inmates scammed unemployment

From the Daily News:

Seven Rikers Island inmates conned the state into paying them $160,000 in unemployment benefits while they were living in the big house — a felony that may get them moved to state prison if convicted, the state Department of Labor said Tuesday.

The inmates each had an accomplice who helped them file their claims and deposit their weekly unemployment checks, the Labor Department said.

All 14 were arrested Tuesday and charged with third-degree grand larceny. They could face up to seven years in prison if found guilty.

Foreclosures double in southeastern Queens

From the NY Post:

A new wave of foreclosures is hammering middle-class homeowners in Queens.

Southeastern Queens neighborhoods such as St. Albans have been reeling since 2008, when the first wave of the foreclosure crisis hit, ensnaring many low-income homeowners with subprime loans.

Filings fell in 2011, but a dramatic spike in the 2012 foreclosure rate is spreading the pain to middle-class residents with higher-quality loans.

These homeowners should be the backbone of a stable middle class in Queens, but they’ve been undone by high unemployment and unyielding bankers.

The new face of foreclosures includes couples of whom one spouse loses a job — and the only replacement is part-time work for lower pay. Many owners of two-family homes are falling behind on mortgage payments after their tenants become unemployed.

Foreclosures jumped 19 percent in New York City and 164 percent in Queens in 2012 versus 2011, as The Post reported last week. Four of the hardest-hit sections of Queens — St. Albans, Rosedale, Cambria Heights and Queens Village — saw foreclosure rates more than double, according to RealtyTrac. More than 2 percent of housing units in those areas are in foreclosure, outstripping the national average of 1.39 percent.

Opportunity arises from tragedy

From the NY Times:

New York State will hire more than 5,000 unemployed residents in temporary positions to help clean up debris and distribute supplies in areas stricken by Hurricane Sandy, the Cuomo administration announced on Sunday.

The jobs will pay roughly $15 an hour and could last as long as six months. They will be available to residents in the communities that were most affected by the storm, including areas of New York City, Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley.

State officials said that hiring would be focused on young people as well as the long-term unemployed, and that the positions would be financed by a grant of nearly $28 million from the federal government.

To be eligible for the positions, prospective workers must be unemployed, at least 18 and live on Long Island, in the five boroughs of New York City or in Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster or Westchester Counties. Residents can apply for jobs by calling 1-888-469-7365 or by filling out an online form.

If you lost your job due to Sandy, there's help

From CBS:

Federal disaster unemployment assistance is now available to all New Yorkers who lost their jobs as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement Friday. Disaster unemployment benefits are available to provide financial support to anyone who has lost their job and live or work in the Bronx, Kings, New York, Richmond, Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties.

This unemployment assistance will supplement New York’s existing unemployment insurance system and will expand eligibility to include individuals who might otherwise not be covered. The United States Department of Labor has committed to providing additional assistance if needed.

Anyone unemployed due to Hurricane Sandy is immediately eligible and can submit a claim to the Department of Labor. The criterion for collecting disaster assistance is broader than for collecting regular unemployment benefits. Specifically, an individual can collect disaster assistance in any of the following cases:

· Injured in the disaster and unable to work, whether the person is an employee or self-employed.
· Workplace is damaged, or destroyed, or the person cannot work because of the disaster.
· Transportation to work is not available because of the disaster.
· Cannot get to work because must travel through the affected area, which is impossible due to disaster.
· Planned to begin working, but cannot because of the disaster.
· Derived most of income from areas affected by the disaster, and business is closed or inoperable because of the disaster.

Examples of self-employment include small business owners, independent taxi drivers, vendors, independent commercial fisherman, and farmers.

All lined up and no place to work

From Crains:

Despite continued job gains, the city's unemployment rate jumped to 10% in June, from 9.7% in May, matching its recession peak, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.

The jobless rate was more than a full percentage point above last June's figure.

An analysis of employment over the past four years by the Fiscal Policy Institute shows that blacks have been hit especially hard. Household employment in the city was down 2.9% for the 12 months through May from four years earlier, but down 13.3% for black men and 8.6% for black women. It was up 8.4% for white women, the analysis showed.

An increase in people who held multiple jobs or were self-employed moving back into payroll employment could also account for some of the disparity. Mayor Michael Bloomberg also pointed to another factor: an expanding workforce. "As fast as New York City is creating jobs, people are entering the labor market even faster, which indicates optimism and confidence in the long-term future of New York City," he said in a statement.

I thought a third term for Mike Bloomberg was supposed to take care of all this. What happened, fiscal genius?

Food stamp rush causes crowded facilities

From the Wall Street Journal:

Growing numbers of New Yorkers seeking food stamps have created an unwelcome spillover effect at some of New York City's job centers: overcrowding that in some cases has grown so severe, benefits were jeopardized.

The crush of people grew so large at one Brooklyn center in November that the Fire Department intervened and prevented anyone from entering the building.

HRA spokeswoman Connie Ress blamed the overflow crowds on rising numbers of people seeking food stamps. The number of New Yorkers getting the benefit has increased by 200,000 in the past two years, jumping to 1.8 million from 1.6 million in late 2009. At the same time, the agency has consolidated some facilities, Ms. Ress said.

LIC's Pathmark in jeopardy?

From the Queens Chronicle:

Jackie Kozody has worked at the Long Island City Pathmark for 14 years.

She would like to continue to do so, but said she and her coworkers have been on edge since December when A&P, or the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co., filed for bankruptcy.

A&P owns 15 supermarkets in Queens under the Pathmark and Waldbaum’s brands, and a total of 58 in New York City under various names including 16 Food Emporium stores in Manhattan.

Kozody manages customer service, cashiers, bookkeepers and customer complaints in a store with more than 100 employees.

“The fear is not having a job, that at any moment the store could close,” she said, “that at any moment the store is going under or being sold to someone we don’t know. There’s a lot of tension, worrying about how we would make ends meet or standing in the unemployment line.”

Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules allow A&P, the 151-year-old grocery chain, to be protected from its creditors while it reorganizes under a new management team.