On Monday, April 29, Mayor Eric Adams touted new data from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) showing that the city's Black unemployment rate has fallen to 7.9 percent, the lowest it has been since 2019.
"As recently as last January, Black New Yorkers were four times more likely to be unemployed than white New Yorkers, but we have been able to narrow this gap and, today, Black unemployment is down to its lowest point since 2019 and the racial employment disparity has been cut in half," said Adams.
Since Adams took office in January 2022, the city's overall unemployment rate has dropped from 8.1 percent to 4.9 percent, with decreases across all recorded demographics, including the white unemployment rate dropping from 6.8 percent to 3.3 percent, the Black unemployment rate dropping from 10.7 percent to 7.9 percent and the Latinx unemployment rate dropping from 9.1 percent to 6.7 percent, according to EDC data.
The city does not report estimates for the Asian population "due to high margins of error, caused by heterogeneity in the population," according to the EDC.
To build on the progress made thus far, Adams announced a $1 million multi-media advertising campaign, " Run This Town," to help connect diverse New Yorkers to thousands of open city jobs through digital, TV, and radio advertisements and posters placed throughout the city's mass transit system.
"We have more to do and that's why we're going to bring new opportunities to working people across the five boroughs that have been overlooked for far too long. We want to recruit the next generation of leaders who will help us build a more equitable New York City, and 'Run This Town' will help us do exactly that," Adams said.
The campaign comes on the heels of the mayor's new jobs initiative, "Jobs NYC," a collaborative effort across multiple city agencies to make entry-level city jobs more accessible, launch a new job portal for employers and jobseekers and host monthly hiring halls in target communities.
Each borough will now host monthly hiring halls connecting New Yorkers with job opportunities in the municipal workforce, employers interviewing for roles and community-based organizations connecting talent to training and other opportunities.
The free Jobs NYC online talent portal, managed by the Mayor's Office of Talent and Workforce Development and accessible through the MyCity portal, will connect jobseekers to career opportunities, free employment services and occupational-skills trainings for opportunities in both the public and private sectors.
Last year, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), headed by Commissioner Dawn Pinnock, also began reducing qualification requirements for 17 entry-level municipal titles to make the jobs more accessible.
"The Adams administration is improving the lives of working-class people everyday thanks to initiatives like the Jobs NYC talent portal that democratize technology and provide easier access to city services and information," said New York City Chief Technology Officer Matthew Fraser. "Through the broader Jobs NYC effort, we're empowering more New Yorkers, particularly residents in communities experiencing high unemployment, to take advantage of vital training and workforce development offerings and engage with citywide economic opportunities."
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