Mayor Bill De Blasio Launching Task Force Aiming To Create Jobs, Close Income Gap
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio is creating a task force to reinvent the city's approach to job training, creation and placement.
As WCBS 880's Marla Diamond reported, the mayor brought together leaders in education, the public and private sectors and the unions to address the city's widening income gap during Tuesday's announcement at Brooklyn Army Terminal.
"This task force is going to help us re-engineer our approach so it aligns to the future," de Blasio said. "And that when we do a job placement, it's a job placement that sticks."
The city spends a half-billion dollars on job creation, and De Blasio said it is simply not getting its money's worth, Diamond reported.
"One of the most fundamental things we can do is create more quality jobs," Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said. "Not more minimum-wage jobs.
"There's been this disjointed method of job creation," he added. "We have used a rotary phone concept in the smartphone age. That is over with today."
In some instances, jobs are available, but few in the work force meet the qualifications, said Stephen Kemp, an employer at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
"We often post an open position, and we'll get a hundred resumes," Kemp said. "But few, if any, have the fundamental skills required for the job."
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