The Times asked last week whether America’s best engine of social mobility can weather a bad job market. The answer is yes, but not on autopilot and not on the backs of students alone. I told The Times that too many employers still don’t see CUNY and public school students as worth the upfront investment. That’s not a talent problem. It’s a failure of imagination.
New York already has the workforce it needs. Our competitive advantage isn’t hiding overseas or in another state. It sits in CUNY classrooms, public school career programs, apprenticeship training centers, and neighborhoods in every borough.
And the infrastructure is already in place. The New York Jobs CEO Council has shown that when major companies commit to skills-based hiring and build real pipelines into communities like ours, they do not just fill seats — they find the talent they had been screening out for years. Look at FutureReadyNYC, which puts public school students on career-connected pathways with early college credit, work-based learning, and industry credentials before they ever graduate. The next generation is not waiting to be discovered. They are being prepared, right now, in our public schools. So keep going. Go bigger.
CUNY ASAP, one of the most rigorously proven college success models in the country, has nearly doubled graduation rates by pairing tuition support with advising, OMNY cards, and the wraparound services that keep students moving forward. CUNY Reconnect has brought tens of thousands of New Yorkers back to finish what they started. Organized labor has been building talent the right way for generations through apprenticeships that pair training with wages, mentorship with accountability, and jobs with career pathways. Providers like Per Scholas, Project Basta, COOP Careers, and CareerWise, among many others, have proven what works, not with testimonials, but with data. These are not pilots or promises. They are proof.
The formula isn’t complicated. Build talent in cohorts. Surround people with coaching and peer networks. Stay engaged through that critical first job. Teach the durable skills employers consistently rank among the most valuable: communication, problem-solving, teamwork, adaptability, and persistence. These aren’t “soft skills.” They are the skills that drive productivity, strengthen workplaces, and fuel business growth.
Now, accountability for everyone.
The larger the employer, the greater the responsibility. You measure everything else in your organization; measure this. Track New York City talent across your workforce, your leadership pipeline, and your vendors. If incentives help accelerate that work, let’s build them. Corporate philanthropy has value, but it is not transformation. Until New York City public school and CUNY graduates are represented throughout your workforce and at your leadership tables, there is more work to do.
Stop recruiting from the same schools and expecting different results. The talent pipeline you’re looking for runs through every borough, every CUNY campus, and every public school. Open the door. Hire across all five boroughs. If you want New York’s talent, start with New Yorkers.
Here’s my challenge: the next time someone publishes a “Best Places to Work” list, include the companies building the strongest pathways for New York City students. Those are the employers investing in the future workforce, expanding opportunity, and gaining a competitive edge. That’s how you build a stronger company. That’s how you build a stronger city.
Small businesses are the backbone of New York City’s economy, and that’s not a slogan; it’s arithmetic. More than 200,000 small businesses employ over half of this city’s private-sector workforce. Nearly nine in ten have fewer than twenty employees. A third are minority-owned. When we talk about small business, we are talking about the majority of working New Yorkers. So if we want small businesses to hire locally, we must meet them halfway with evidence, not hope. Supplement wages. Subsidize training that’s proven to work. Fund the intermediaries that connect neighborhood talent to the businesses ready to hire. That is how economic development stops being a press release and becomes a paycheck.
City Hall: as you debate the future of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, remember that the work is waiting.
Developers don’t just shape our skyline — they should help shape our workforce. If you want to build in New York, help build New Yorkers. Every major development should begin with a workforce plan that outlines how local residents will be recruited, trained, and hired, and end with public reporting on whether those commitments were met. Local hiring is not a nice-to-have in an economic development deal. It is the deal.
What does investment really mean for New York? It means uniting economic development and workforce development into a single, focused agenda. For too long, we have recruited companies on one track and prepared our people on another, only to be surprised when the two did not connect. It is time to change that.
Tie paid internships and apprenticeships directly to growth sectors. Make wage subsidies and training dollars follow real hiring commitments. Build wraparound support into every pathway, because that is what makes talent stick. Negotiate employer partnerships like development deals, with jobs for New Yorkers as a term, not a talking point. When every economic development dollar carries a workforce commitment, investment stops being a cost and becomes a growth strategy for the city.
Upfront investment starts with confidence: confidence not only in this city but also in our public schools, CUNY, workforce organizations, community partners, and labor institutions. It means recognizing that New York’s greatest competitive advantage isn’t something we have to import — it’s the talent we’ve already cultivated. The talent is here. The infrastructure is here. What New York needs now is the commitment to invest in both.
