According to a new city measurement, nearly one in four New Yorker’s lives in poverty, two million New Yorkers need some form of literacy assistance, and by some estimates nearly 200,000 youth age 16-24 are disconnected – not in school or in the labor market. These statistics are daunting, but our challenge is clear – the city’s economic competitiveness depends on our ability to have the best workforce in the world and one that provides opportunities to all New Yorkers. If we are going to achieve this, we need to make a significant and sustained investment in our greatest asset – our people. A casualty of declining federal support and state and city fiscal challenges, workforce development programs have taken a major hit and the city’s workforce community is starting to feel the impacts.
With economic turmoil intensifying on a daily basis, unemployment on the rise, and New Yorkers feeling the squeeze, the declining support for workforce programs could not be happening at a worse time. At the same time, larger trends like globalization and profound demographic changes is building the “perfect storm” of workforce challenges.
Despite the odds and the ever increasing challenges, our members make it work – piecing together funding sources, creating new innovative approaches, and never forgetting the people they serve – the individuals and families behind the statistics -- a forgotten population who are the heart of this city.
Now more than ever, workforce organization must be innovative and able to adapt to the changing needs of New Yorkers. NYCETC is the vital link in making this happen. Our programs provide organizations with high quality information on best practices, labor market information, emerging sectors, needs of employers, opportunities for collaboration, lessons learned, funding opportunities, and new policy directions.
NYCETC History
The New York City Employment and Training Coalition was formed in 1997 to promote effective employment and training practices, and to share our experience about "best practices" with state and local workforce development policymakers. The Coalition is the only organization of its kind in New York, and is one of only a handful of similar organizations nationally. The Coalition was staffed primarily by volunteers until the spring of 2001, when a full-time professional staff was hired. A permanent New York City office opened in December 2001. The Coalition is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and an incubator project of the Fund for the City of New York.
Learn more about NYCETC and its Three Year Strategic Plan:
Click here to read our Three Year Strategic Plan (Oct. 06-Sept. 09).
Accomplishments
Advocacy for Funding/Programmatic Changes: In the past three years, NYCETC has undertaken several challenging, yet successful advocacy efforts to enhance workforce development funding and programs in New York City. Last year, NYCETC worked with other city and state advocates to encourage the State to create a new $5 million Career Pathways Program. The State agreed to establish/fund the program, which enables low-income adults and youth to train for and advance along a career pathway in a specific industry sector (see our attached report for more details on this initiative). From 2006-2008, NYCETC successfully advised Mayor Bloomberg's new Commission on Economic Opportunity on the creation and implementation of innovative new programs to serve individuals involved with the criminal justice system and disconnected youth, as well as programs focused on key industry sectors.
Connecting the System: NYCETC has served as a leader in the last few years on convening and connecting all parts of the New York City workforce development system through more than 25 educational forums and conferences. NYCETC has brought over 3,000 workforce development practitioners, city and state government agency and elected officials, foundations, industry associations and other stakeholders together at events on such key issues/topics as labor market trends; best program practices; benefits and services to support job retention; city, state and federal government plans for workforce development policies and funding; and much more.
Creation of Information Resources: NYCETC has become the leading "one stop shop" for news, information and resources for New York City's workforce development system. In the past three years, NYCETC has produced a set of unique resources to make timely information about workforce development policies, best program practices, funding opportunities and NYCETC advocacy efforts available to thousands of education and training practitioners, city and state government officials, foundations, employers, researchers, advocates, the media and other stakeholders. These resources have included: (1) a monthly e-newsletter -- which, due to its popularity and our readers' demand for more information on a more frequent basis, became a weekly e-newsletter starting in Oct. 2007 (the NYC Workforce Weekly); and (2) a comprehensive website (www.nycetc.org), which is currently undergoing a major upgrade in order to enhance users' access to the information resources.