|
 Printer-Friendly Version
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: 202-219- 8211.
The private sector is not likely to create enough summer
work to make up for public sector jobs eliminated by Congress for next year,
Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich announced based on an independent survey
released today.
"Employers are unable -- and in some cases unwilling -- to
create enough summer jobs for all the young people who need and want to work,"
Reich said. "For disadvantaged youth who rely on public sector programs, this
is bad news; it means job opportunities for the summer of 1996 will be
especially bleak, and the federal government will be hamstrung in its ability
to help."
Reich's assessment came from a study by Westat, Inc., an
independent research organization in Rockville, Md. The survey of the 20 cities
with the largest public sector summer jobs programs indicated that one million
disadvantaged young people will be unable to find summer jobs next year if the
public sector program is eliminated because:
- There are already more than two eligible youth for every public
sector summer job created by the government.
- Nearly 500,000 young people who worked this year will be unable to
find jobs next year.
"At a time when millions of kids want and need summer jobs,
it is ironic that we barely salvaged funds for this year's program," Reich
said. "Denying kids opportunities for next year is tragic."
This summer the federal government spent $867,000,000 to
create up to 615,000 summer jobs for disadvantaged youth, aged 14-21. A
comparable amount already slated for next summer was rescinded last month by
the Congress, and appropriations for the coming fiscal year remain
uncertain.
The Labor Secretary noted that the jobs shortage will be
especially acute for 14- and 15-year-olds who have the greatest difficulty
finding private sector jobs and who make up nearly half of the youth served by
the public sector program.
Public sector summer jobs include work in day care and
eldercare centers, libraries, hospitals, museums, laboratories, parks,
playgrounds and city offices.
Westat's study of the 1995 summer program concluded that,
of the 600,000 or more disadvantaged youth who have jobs, fewer than 20 percent
would have been able to find work without the public sector program. Public
sector jobs programs are frequently run by Mayors' Offices at the local level
but are funded by the Labor Department through Title IIB of the Job Training
Partnership Act (JTPA).
Westat's analysis concluded that:
- "... under present circumstances, it is likely that the large
majority of the 600,000 disadvantaged youth who would have been employed under
IIB next summer will be jobless. They will join the hundreds of thousands of
unemployed youth who apply annually for IIB but for whom slots are not
available. More than twice as many youth apply for the IIB program as are able
to be enrolled. Private sector hiring and state and local government programs
-- at their current level -- will not come close to taking up the slack."
Westat's survey also showed that there are very few summer
jobs programs for disadvantaged youth other than JTPA, and that federal, state
and local efforts to increase private sector hiring generally meet with only
limited success. A few cities -- such as Boston, New York, Buffalo and Chicago
-- are exceptions, with higher levels of private sector support due, in part,
to aggressive involvement of the Mayors' Offices.
The 20 urban areas with the largest JTPA summer jobs
enrollments surveyed for the report were Boston; New York; Buffalo; Washington,
D.C.; Baltimore; Philadelphia; Miami; Broward Country, Fla.; Jacksonville;
Atlanta; Chicago; Detroit; Milwaukee; New Orleans; Houston; San Antonio; Los
Angeles City; Los Angeles County; San Diego; and San Francisco.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
| 
