Good jobs hard to find in Bronx; Borough's fortunes improve, but lack of basic skills, unemployment rate remain problems.(Employment Outlook Report) - Crain's New York Business

Byline: Tom Fredrickson

Nkeisha mack knows what it takes to make it in the Bronx workforce--training, training and more training.

Ms. Mack, 30, studied medical billing in school, but she says hospitals won't hire her because she is not bilingual in Spanish. She is stuck for now in a home health care job and knows that the only way she'll get a higher-paying job is with yet more training. She plans to start nursing school in June.

'If you are willing to work at any job, you can find a job,'' Ms. Mack says. 'But it's hard to find work in the area in which you are trained.''

Newcomers' plight

the bronx is moving forward, but employment is lagging. As commercial and residential development pours into the borough, many newcomers to the job market are held back by their lack of basic skills. People who do find work can't move up because there aren't enough high-paying jobs.

'There is a tremendous demand for lower-wage work,'' says Adam Barshak, chief operating officer for Wildcat Services, which operates the city's Workforce1 Career Center in the Bronx. 'We are hoping to work with employers that offer jobs with higher wages.''

While the city's overall employment rate fell below 6% in January, the unemployment rate in the Bronx stood at 7.6%--the highest of all the boroughs. The unemployment rate alone doesn't tell the full story. The Bronx likely has the largest percentage of people in the city who don't even show up in the data because they're not looking for work, according to James Brown, an economist with the state Department of Labor.

Rough area

the south bronx, a longtime emblem of city blight, remains one of the poorest urban areas in the United States. In the borough's roughest pockets, employment problems are exacerbated by broader social crises, such as drug abuse, broken families and an underperforming school system.

Moreover, new immigrants, who face additional challenges, make up a large bloc of unemployed Bronx residents.

'One challenge is to get the people who have been here for a long time in a condition of undereducation and poverty prepared for the workforce,'' says Borough President Adolfo Carrion. 'At the same time, we have to get new New Yorkers skilled up and English-proficient so they can be part of the workplace.''

Community organizations are starting to address the issues of training and language.

Wildcat, which operates in the Bronx under a contract with the city Department of Small Business Services, is now finding jobs for 500 people a quarter--up from 100 a quarter when the program began in April 2004. And about 900 Bronx residents got vouchers last year for higher-level job training from private vocational schools.

Giving up

but low wages undercut job stability and induce people to give up. While some available retail jobs, for example, pay as much as $15 an hour, most pay much less and are insufficient to support a family. Job agencies generally have more low-paying home health aide jobs than they can fill.

'I can find people jobs at $7.50 per hour, but that is not a living wage,'' says George Marquez, president of development at the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp., known as SoBRO. 'Many people who take those jobs are going to bounce to another job and then to unemployment.''

With demand for employees strong, agencies are placing hundreds of Bronx residents in retail, security, financial services and health care positions every quarter. In the 30-day period that ended March 15, Wildcat posted 442 new jobs, including 202 in retail and 56 in travel and transportation.

Mr. Marquez wants to do more than place job-seekers in random jobs; he is trying to launch careers. He is developing programs to offer specific training in conjunction with employers. For instance, he estimates that he could find employment for 300 Bronx people who have commercial drivers' licenses. Such driving and delivery jobs pay upward of $12 an hour.

'We have identified that as a major need for businesses in terms of employment,'' Mr. Marquez says.

Beyond job training

those are the signs of progress. The intensive efforts of recent years have primarily benefited the borough's most motivated job seekers. But further improvement in the employment outlook will require much more than job training. City officials and neighborhood leaders need to tackle a broader set of problems as well.

'Compared with other counties in the state,'' says Mr. Brown, the state labor economist, 'the Bronx ranks near the top in poverty and near the bottom in household income.''

COMMENTS? TFredrickson@crain.com

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Interview prep: Beda Vergara of the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp. leads a job application class.