New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city’s first-ever community hiring effort, which will leverage more than $1.2 billion in city contracts to create job opportunities for underserved New Yorkers.
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Community hiring allows the city to use its purchasing power, set hiring goals across city procurement contracts, and build on the success of existing project labor agreements and agency-specific hiring programs.
Yesterday, the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) released the city’s first-ever request for proposal (RFP) subject to community hiring, which will result in an estimated $1.2 billion in contracts for security guard services and fire safety personnel throughout the five boroughs.
The contracts awarded under this RFP contain a community hiring goal for 40 percent of the labor hours to be performed by individuals who live in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) housing or in a ZIP code where at least 15 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty threshold.
With state legislation on community hiring going into effect on May 15, in just over one month, the Adams administration is already delivering on the potential of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Community Hiring (OCH) to create more equitable pathways for New Yorkers to participate in the city’s economy.
Once the RFP is awarded, the resulting contracts will provide an estimated 10 million hours of prevailing wage job opportunities for NYCHA residents and residents of low-income communities over the five-year contract term.
Job opportunities include security guards, security guard supervisors, field inspectors, field managers, and an emergency action plan and fire safety director.
New hires will be provided with 40 hours of no-cost training as part of their employment. OCH will work closely with DCAS to ensure that the vendors are able to access the talent they need and that New Yorkers in search of opportunity can connect with available opportunities.
Additionally, DCAS, in partnership with MOCS and the Mayor’s Office of Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises, are continuing to use procurement opportunities to drive equitable economic development by increasing minority- and women-owned business enterprise (M/WBE) utilization.
The RFP will require city agencies with under $1.5 million in annual spending on security guard services to solicit from a pre-qualified list of M/WBE firms.
Last year, Mayor Adams announced the formation of the Office of Community Hiring and the appointment of Doug Lipari as its executive director after successfully advancing legislation in Albany with support from labor, state elected leaders, and workforce organizations.
OCH will work with contractors to identify promising talent and provide employment and apprenticeship opportunities for low-income individuals and those residing in economically-disadvantaged communities.
Once fully implemented, an estimated 36,000 jobs will be created annually for low-income individuals and impacted communities, allowing city contractors to leverage the full talent of the New York City workforce. ■
A very active and complex mid-May weather pattern is set to produce numerous areas of severe weather, heavy rain, high winds, and anomalous temperatures through this weekend.