LOCAL JOBS TARGETED BY NEW PARTNERSHIP

LOCAL JOBS FOR RESIDENTS TARGETED BY NEW CITY PARTNERSHIP WITH


WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

City of Somerville seeks to partner with an agency that

will connect local workers first with local jobs, serving as first contact for

employers looking to hire local residents

SOMERVILLE

– With an anticipated influx of new job opportunities in Somerville, the City

aims to cut a path leading local workers directly to those jobs by entering into

a contract with a local workforce development agency. In addition to providing

job training, the selected agency will connect residents with Somerville

employers looking to hire and will promote all opportunities for residents to

have first access to local jobs.

Although

Somerville’s unemployment rate is consistently 1 to 2 percent lower than the

state unemployment rate, most residents work outside the city, with 45,000

workers living in the city today but only 20,000 jobs located within the city. But

that tide is beginning to turn. With the coming arrival of the Green Line

Extension, a wave of commercial development underway in Assembly Square and the

future commercial expansion of Union Square, Somerville is moving toward the community’s

goal of creating 30,000 new jobs in the city by 2030, as set forth in the

20-year comprehensive SomerVision plan. Beyond creating new jobs, existing commercial

development has already paid great dividends in the form of a lower tax rate in

fiscal year 2014 and an unprecedented shift in the tax burden from residential

to commercial property owners.

Still,

only 16 percent of Somerville residents work in the city today. The City is

adopting a strategy to ensure that Somerville residents can take advantage of

the new employment opportunities created by city’s growth, allowing them to

work near where they live, reduce their commuting costs and spend more time

with their families.

That strategy starts with the City inviting proposals from

agencies—public, private or nonprofit—that can create and maintain a database

of both interested job applicants and Somerville job opportunities, serve as

the primary point of contact for employers looking to hire local residents,

host job fairs and advertise through social and print media local job

opportunities as they arise. These steps will help Somerville residents gain first

access to new employment opportunities in the City, bypassing the sometimes

confusing, difficult to access and hard to navigate regional workforce

development system, a problem identified by the Somerville Jobs Advisory

Committee established by Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone.

The agency must also prepare residents for new jobs coming

to Somerville by providing workforce development training that equips

Somerville residents with the skills they need to take advantage of these new

opportunities. Somerville businesses will also be empowered to find qualified

employees with roots in the community, as the agency will serve as the primary

contact for Somerville employers looking to hire locally.

“Our core value is making Somerville an exceptional place to

live, work, play and raise a family, and making that a reality for all our

residents begins with ‘work’—having a decent job makes living here, playing

here and raising a family all possible,” said Mayor Curtatone. “We need to give

local workers every advantage that we can, so that as Somerville grows, so do

our residents in the workforce. We started with the Jobs Advisory Committee

that identified the barriers our residents face in finding employment near

their homes, and this proposed partnership directly addresses the

recommendations made by that committee. Local jobs for local residents mean a

better quality of life for our residents, saving time and money, and improving

personal health and public health, and bringing new employers to the City diminishes

the tax burden on residents while increasing the resources needed to maintain

and improve city services.”

The agency will agree to a performance-based two-year

contract worth a maximum of $100,000, according to the request for proposals

(RFP) that the City released this week, with a maximum of $50,000 paid to the

agency each year. The City will hold the agency accountable for its performance

by agreeing on proposed benchmarks—including number of residents served,

successful job placements, workforce training sessions offered and frequency of

public outreach—and a schedule for meeting those benchmarks. In the first year

of the contract, 20 percent of the funds will be linked to meeting those

benchmarks, rising to 50 percent and in the second year of the contract.