The Central New York economy has rapidly evolved over the past decade and, most notably, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. To better understand the opportunities and challenges affecting the lives of thousands of families across our community, CenterState CEO’s Work Train team has released a new workforce-data report for the Syracuse metropolitan statistical area […]
The Central New York economy has rapidly evolved over the past decade and, most notably, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. To better understand the opportunities and challenges affecting the lives of thousands of families across our community, CenterState CEO’s Work Train team has released a new workforce-data report for the Syracuse metropolitan statistical area (MSA) (https://bit.ly/2K8eWg7). This analytic look at current conditions and trends relies on labor-market data to help align partners around shared solutions and strategies, spark conversation, and support data-driven decision-making to address issues affecting businesses and jobseekers. It will be updated and released periodically.
The report highlights approximately 24,000 open jobs in the region, with nearly 7,500 of those jobs within just 10 miles of Syracuse. At the same time, almost 20,000 people are unemployed. Additionally, we know that unemployment is falling, in part because large numbers of people are dropping out of the workforce and recovery for mid-and high-wage jobs is good, but people in low-wage jobs are not recovering as quickly. This leaves the Syracuse MSA with a low unemployment rate, but the city of Syracuse still sees higher unemployment than the state and federal averages. Work Train is using this data to better understand employer and job-seeker needs and find ways to align the two.
I invite you to review this report to understand how its data can inform and support your business. We hope employers find it a valuable tool as they look to improve job quality and advance their talent attraction and retention strategies. In particular, our hope is that tech, construction, health care, and manufacturing employers will heed the call to action to work with us and other community partners to advance the strategies outlined.
I also encourage you to think about ways you can work with CenterState CEO on job quality, talent attraction, and supporting programs such as the Good Life CNY and Generation Next’s Tech and Culture initiative.
Robert M. (Rob) Simpson is president and CEO of CenterState CEO, the primary economic-development organization for Central New York. This viewpoint is drawn and edited from the “CEO Focus” email newsletter that the organization sent to members on Dec. 3.