While more than 2,000 migrants in New York City have found jobs through Mayor Eric Adams' ongoing efforts, there are nearly 7,000 more immigrants in the city still looking for employment.
Since October last year, New York's Workforce1 program has contacted about 9,000 migrants; however, only about half of them connected back, as per Small Business Services department official Dynishal Gross, NY Post reported.
The department official noted that around 5,500 migrants did not get jobs.
Gross said the agency expects the number of foreign-born clients to grow from 20% to 25% in the next year, noting that these migrants could help fill job shortages in New York City's food service, construction, and home health care industries, but only if they can be matched with the right jobs.
These numbers show how slow City Hall is working to find jobs for asylum seekers. However, these efforts have made little impact on the 65,000 migrants in the city's care, including 27,000 who are of working age. This has led council members to call for more action.
"I think the fact that we have about 65,000 asylum seekers under our care and only 5,500 have been connected [to SBS services], I think that shows we need a lot of work," Small Business Chair Feliz Oswald said. "We are two years into the crisis. By now we should have good systems."
However, chief policy adviser in the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) Lorena Lucero argued that the paltry figures don't represent the full picture.
"You really can't plan for much because things sort of evolve. We'll continue to support our sister agencies as the needs arrive," Lucero said.
According to MOIA, the city has funded 50 nonprofits to help migrants with job services, explaining that the patchwork system of migrant resources makes it difficult to track how many migrants have the necessary training, work authorization and job search assistance.
Furthermore, many asylum seekers are working illegally in the underground gig economy that has emerged during the crisis. Upper West Side Dem Councilwoman Gale Brewer also spoke about the lack of data, "It's a little loosey-goosey for me."
The city's mayor has also made several pleas for migrants to get jobs.
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