Community Hiring Moves Forward. Questions Remain.

Created by Mayor Eric Adams in 2023 to implement New York City’s newly won authority to leverage its purchasing power by writing hiring requirements into City contracts, the Office of Community Hiring (OCH) initially was projected to connect an estimated 36,000 low-income New Yorkers per year to jobs and apprenticeships. Following a lengthy rulemaking process, the City began to register contracts with employment goals in spring 2025. Although OCH must issue quarterly reports on the total number, demographics, and compensation of hires, NYC’s performance on these measures has not been clear from what it has publicly shared.

On October 27, the New York City Council’s Committee on Workforce Development held an oversight hearing focused on OCH to better understand the state of play. Council Member and Workforce Development Committee Chair Julie Won pushed Doug Lipari, OCH’s first Executive Director, who leads the Office of Talent and Workforce Development (NYC Talent), in which OCH sits, to discuss Community Hiring’s promise, its progress to date, and what it will take to deliver on its potential.

Lipari shared that in total, the City has registered 528 contracts worth a total of $13.3 billion that include Community Hiring goals. These figures represent significant increases from the most recent quarterly report, which noted 179 contracts worth around $3 billion. He also noted that vendors on the 179 contracts have hired around 1,200 people—although roughly half of that total seems to have come from two contracts that overfilled their hiring goals.

But the picture of who is finding work remains incomplete. He noted that hiring has reached all five boroughs and that “many are on public assistance,” but offered limited demographic information and no detail on earnings.

Lipari and current OCH Executive Director Ji Lee also offered only broad explanations for why 75 of 83 registered construction contracts had reported no progress. It remained unclear how many of the previously announced 700 pre-apprenticeship positions had been filled. Across five contracts reporting progress toward an apprenticeship goal, apprentices from targeted communities logged no hours—a gap that warrants a clearer explanation.

Community Hiring remains in its early days, and the growth trend in covered contracts seems encouraging. As Lipari noted, many contracts play out over years, and hiring should pick up as the scope of work unfolds. NYCETC was an early voice supporting community hiring, dating back to the state-focused advocacy effort that helped pass legislation in 2023, and we remain committed to its success.

But Tuesday’s hearing left a significant question unresolved: how well is Community Hiring reaching the people and communities it is intended to serve?

At Tuesday’s hearing, OCH described substantial work to launch Community Hiring. Lipari cited extensive engagement with external partners and City agencies before the rules took effect early last year, and Lee said outreach continues through procurement fairs and other vendor events.

But Council members’ questions highlighted why that outreach’s reach matters. Council Member Harvey Epstein pressed for specifics about the City’s partnerships on the Lower East Side, bringing the discussion to the neighborhood level. Council Member Phil Wong’s acknowledgment that he had not heard of Community Hiring made the challenge plain: people need to know the program exists—and where to connect—before its promise can become an opportunity.

Chair Won also pressed on whether OCH has the staffing needed to meet the program’s expectations. Officials expressed openness to additional support but offered little sense of urgency about securing it. That measured response is familiar from administration officials at oversight hearings, and it remains a concern: staff needs room to make a clear case for the resources their work requires. Identifying and securing that capacity is especially urgent if OCH is expected to help vendors navigate the program, connect them with workforce partners, and expand Community Hiring to major institutions such as Health + Hospitals and NYC Public Schools.

Most alarming is the lack of a clear accountability standard. OCH has not clarified – or at least has not shared – a standard or timetable for determining when a vendor has fallen short of its legal obligation to make “best efforts.” Program rules define those efforts as advertising openings, working with referral sources, maintaining regular contact with OCH, and retaining and training hires. They also provide a $2,500 penalty for noncompliance, plus an additional $1,000 per week for failing to take corrective action.

Asked how OCH determines whether a vendor has made “best efforts,” Lipari said the answer “will vary depending on the type of vendor doing the work,” describing it as “somewhat of a bespoke process.”

That approach presumably requires considerable staff time and close attention—making the office’s capacity especially consequential. Chair Won noted that OCH is budgeted for 16 staff members. Lipari and Lee reported that it currently has eight, plus two at the Department of Small Business Services. Although the officials and Chair Won differed on whether there are three or six vacancies, OCH acknowledged that it has no active job postings.

Community Hiring should be a top priority for the Mamdani administration. The program aligns with the Mayor’s stated commitments to use government power, in this case its purchasing power through contracts, to serve regular New Yorkers and ease the affordability crisis for low-income New Yorkers by connecting them to higher-quality jobs. Administration officials, including Lipari and Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su, who oversees NYC Talent, have characterized the workforce system as “essential public infrastructure.”

Also frustrating is the City’s evident slow learning curve from a previous effort with a similar goal. Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, HireNYC required vendors with City contracts over certain thresholds to post related job openings with the City’s Workforce1 Career Center network and consider qualified candidates. A 2019 analysis from City Limits magazine found that more than 4,100 referrals were made under the program’s provisions. Of that number, 767 were hired, 31 were not hired, and the remaining 3,303—about 80 percent—were recorded as “pending.” It is unclear whether the City ever learned whether it hired those candidates.

Community Hiring was intentionally designed to address the shortcomings of HireNYC. While the previous measure relied on mayoral policy and contract riders, Community Hiring is grounded in state law and the City Charter. It now requires quarterly reporting, whereas HireNYC had no public reporting requirement. It explicitly targets low-income residents in high-poverty communities, and includes financial penalties for failing to make “best efforts” to hire, which HireNYC lacked.

But if disclosure is incomplete, and the tools to encourage compliance go unused, Community Hiring will likely fall far short of its potential. In his testimony following Lipari and Lee, NYCETC CEO Gregory J. Morris called on the City to take five steps to fulfill that promise:

Make accountability follow the worker. By tracking a jobseeker’s journey through the steps of Community Hiring – from referral to interview, offer, start date, and retention/advancement—we can better understand where the system is effective and where it needs reconsideration. Similarly, reporting should distinguish between newly hired workers under Community Hiring provisions and those recategorized from previous roles.

Give community organizations a funded role in program delivery. In the hearing, Lipari and Lee cited a referral network of 81 organizations, including 28 community-based groups. But NYCETC has a membership of 220 organizations, and Committee members Harvey Epstein and Phil Wong joined Chair Won in requesting greater engagement with their communities about Community Hiring opportunities. Sharing information about vacancies, required qualifications, wages, and hiring timelines—and funding organizations that refer candidates—can expand OCH’s reach and strengthen the program’s impact.

Make apprenticeship commitments real. Community Hiring should be a powerful vehicle for connecting low-income New Yorkers to apprenticeships, a proven path to career success. Public data showing zero apprentice hours across the five reporting contracts is alarming. OCH needs both to explain why this is happening and what corrective actions it will take.

Make the opportunity visible across industries. One way NYC’s Community Hiring initiative differs from programs elsewhere is its sectoral breadth: it covers not just construction, but human services, healthcare, and more. Greater transparency about what it takes to qualify for openings, including credentials and skills, as well as earnings and advancement pathways, will clarify the program’s performance and attract more candidates and organizational partners.

Make economic mobility an indicator of success. Job placement is not, and should not be understood as, the end of the story. Community Hiring reporting should include wages, benefits, hours worked, and six- and 12-month retention rates, as well as credentials earned and advancement over time. This analysis should include breakdowns by industry, demographics, and referral source. This will illuminate who is getting served and who isn’t, and inform what adjustments are needed.

Community Hiring retains enormous potential to connect New Yorkers to jobs that provide economic security—and to make the Mamdani vision of government real through the everyday work of serving the public. Turnout at the newly opened NYC Jobs Center, and at hiring halls over the past year, suggests the interest is there. The City should champion what its dollars can do: put Community Hiring on signs at publicly funded projects, promote it in neighborhoods, even give it a jingle. New Yorkers should know what their government is investing in—and how to get connected.

Fulfilling that promise will take more than the good intentions and diligence OCH has shown thus far. It requires the staff to support vendors, the partnerships to reach communities, and clear standards to hold contractors accountable. We encourage OCH to make the case for what it needs to grow, and the City Council to keep the spotlight on whether that growth delivers for New Yorkers. We stand ready to help OCH connect with workforce partners, reach more New Yorkers, and make Community Hiring deliver on its promise.

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