April 29, 2024 NYC Office of the Mayor News
Commissioner Dawn Pinnock, Department of Citywide Administrative Services: Good afternoon, everyone. I don't think I can hear you. Good afternoon, everyone.
I am Dawn Pinnock, and I proudly serve as the commissioner of the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services, more commonly known as DCAS. I'm so happy to welcome you all here today as we celebrate bringing jobs back and creating municipal opportunities for more people than ever before. Those who know me know that municipal service is close to my heart. Both of my parents saw the benefits of government work, devoting their lives to serving New Yorkers. Their unwavering commitment has deeply influenced me and has fueled my nearly 30-year career in municipal government.
It's been an honor to translate that commitment into action through this administration's efforts. We've worked hand in hand over the past two years to connect New Yorkers to municipal work. Since day one of this administration, Mayor Adams has stressed the importance of personal connections and face-to-face interactions between government workers and the public, getting outside, interacting with our neighbors and the people in our communities. Engaging with New Yorkers has been instrumental in showing that municipal workers are working for them, and through increased access, our people-centric approach and commitment to equity, we've been making a difference.
Last year we brought opportunities to every corner of New York City with our New York City Government Hiring Halls. Now that model serves as a blueprint for the recently launched Jobs NYC.
We have changed our minimum qualifications for nearly 20,000 jobs to make municipal work more accessible than ever before. We even launched a new website, jobs.nyc.gov, to streamline the job search and make finding a job with New York City even easier. All this work in concert helps us signal to New Yorkers that the keys to their future are just beyond their doors, but as has been the case with this administration, we are not resting on our laurels, we are even in a place today to announce something even more special. We're going even further to get stuff done for you. With that said, it is my great enthusiasm that I introduce the captain of Team New York, Mayor Eric Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much, Dawn. Really the partnership that's here from our amazing congressman, our future chairman, Congressman Meeks, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards — Queens gets the money — and the assemblywoman who really help us bring home some real victories, Assemblywoman Hyndman. Just thanks all of you who's here.
We're here with Team New York. My first deputy mayor who's really overseeing this entire agenda and what you're seeing, the accomplishment that we have accomplished.
This is not the first hiring hall. We did several hiring halls where we come in directly to you to bring the jobs that are available. Abby Jo Sigal has really looked at this and said, How do we become real about employment? Not only did we open it up for city jobs, we have thousands of good-paying city jobs that are available.
But Dawn has shown how we could expand with the city jobs, but also what do we do with the private sector jobs? We have private sector employers that are here looking to get employees. Today, we want to communicate on the ground by using the various multimedia aspects of doing so. One of my favorite songs is based on this title, who's going to run this town tonight? That's what our media outreach is going to be. Who's going to run this town tonight? We are. We are. We're going to get folks employed with great success.
When we came into office, we had over 10 percent hiring problem with the Black community. We have now brought those numbers down to lower than 8 percent, the first time since 2019. We have reached out and we're clear. The popularity of brand New York was turning into prosperity for everyone. Job is more than what we do during the AM hour of our day, it's the precursor to sleep that allows you to experience the American dream, and too many people are dealing with the nightmares reality of an employment is unattainable. We dropped in on a lot of my man over in our Communications, Ethnic Media. José has an awesome responsibility of getting this information out.
Not only do we want to use this advertisement, we want you to tweet it, we want you to Facebook it. We want you to Instagram it. We want folks to know that there are jobs available in the city. You can't have all of these vacancies and have a large number of New Yorkers that are unemployed. We need everything from nurses to school safety agents, to lifeguards, food service workers, you name it, the jobs are open, let's get employed. Let's show how we support and uplift working class people. I cannot thank your college enough. I know the president is around. You should be standing next to us.
This amazing, amazing institution. CUNY has always been the entryway to allow access to power. CUNY represents so much with its diversity, with its students, with its presidents, and its leaders in all the organizations that are involved, and we want to say hats off to our CUNY security force who are here keeping us safe every day. Thank you.
Let me be the one to bring up our congressional leader fighting hard on behalf of us in Congress. He has been with us every step of the way from the public safety, the migrants asylum seekers, to making sure we get the support we deserve. I'm really proud to have him representing this city. He used to represent me when I lived in Queens, but I guess now I got to get back from Manhattan and come back to Queens. Congressman Gregs Meeks.
US Representative Gregory Meeks: Let me thank our great mayor, Mayor Eric Adams, baby. He don't talk to talk, he walks the walk and he makes a difference each and every day for average everyday New Yorkers, making our city the greatest city that this planet has ever seen, New York City.
You can just see the commitment that our mayor has had in making lives of our people in the city better. There's no way to make better lives than giving individuals a job. A job is the essence of how you connect to a better tomorrow. Mayor Adams has had the vision from the time that he's got elected to office, not just as mayor, but when he was a state senator, when he was the borough president, always putting the people first and saying that he's going to utilize his experience to make this city better by getting decent jobs for all New Yorkers.
What he's done is just look at the great staff that he's put together. Individuals who have been in the forefront of creating jobs and decided that they were making their career of giving back and creating jobs for all people in the City of New York, and of course I got to say especially right here in Southeastern Queens.
As I see my friends and my colleagues from government that are here, my borough president, my state assemblywoman, my other state assemblywoman, my president of York College, Queens is here because we are going to do our part and we are going to make sure, that's why all of you are here at your college, that if you want a job, you're going to get a job. The best way to a job is right here in our city with our great mayor who's standing up and fighting for us every day.
He's not allowing anyone to stop him or deter him from accomplishing of making tomorrow better for our young people and for all of New Yorkers than today and yesterday was. Thank you, Mayor Adams, for all of the hard work, for all of the focus, for all of the dedication, all of the commitment you've made to every borough in this city of New York. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Commissioner Pinnock: Thank you so much, Congressman. At this time, it is my pleasure to have us tee up something special for all of you today.
[Video plays.]
I love that. Team New York is bringing the heat, and each and every day we run this town. This is absolutely a team effort, and it is my pleasure to bring up to share a few words our borough president of Queens, Mr. Donovan Richards.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards: Let's give it up for the commissioner, Dawn, who's done so much phenomenal work. One thing we often speak about here in the borough, and I know the mayor came in with his theme music, Run This Town, now that's from Jay-Z. Told him he got to switch the soundtrack up when he's in Queens, throw in a little Nas. It's about Queens get the money.
What a special way to start our week. First off, with the Knicks victory, last night Knicks in five. Now we're here to score some other playoff wins for our community and bring the championship home. I want to thank Mayor Adams for certainly coming back to the block. It is so important that we continue to invest in the human capital of our borough.
Every time we do this event, Mr. Mayor, in Queens, it has the largest turnout. I'm not trying to compare to other boroughs, but we have the largest turnout across the city. I also just want to add that the congressmember and the assemblymember and I just left a historic announcement $2.3 billion of MWBE contracts that have gone into JFK Airport. It's about upward mobility, and that's why we're here today. I have to, of course, thank the mayor for building on that foundation because we are going to really ensure that we leave Jamaica better than we found it.
Part of that investment has started with the seed that has been planted by the mayor, $70 million that is going to go into Jamaica Avenue, where we are looking at a holistic development plan, and York College is a big and key part of that investment. The work being done here is to reduce inequality and to combat injustice in our workforce. Mr. Mayor, I can also point to the fact that when we came into office, our unemployment rate hovered somewhere around 24 percent. We are now down to 4 percent, the lowest in New York City.
That starts with jobs from JFK to the tech field, to our workforce development partners. As a Black man, I'm here to say our community still has a long way to go to bring down historic unemployment in our communities, and one way we do that is by holding events like this. I also just want to get out of the habits, as I alluded at the last event, of just talking about jobs, because what we're creating here is upward mobility for our communities.
As we have these looming homelessness crisis, as our asylum seekers have come in, this is about putting food on the table of our residents so that they can pay their rent and keep their lights on, and more importantly, have that self-sustainable pathway to a better future for them and their children. With that being said, I want to congratulate everyone. All of the agencies here, thank you. This would not be possible without you. Let's fill these 13,000 jobs. 13,000 jobs. Tell your friends, tell your family, guess what?
You can get a pension. This is about long-term strategic planning and city investment in you. God bless you all. Congratulations.
Commissioner Pinnock: Thank you so much, President Richards. That does conclude our form remarks…
Mayor Adams: We have great partners here from Albany. We got to let them speak. They have been amazing. They delivered for New York on all areas, and I just want to just say thank you. We came to Albany with a real plan. Number one, to smoke out illegal cannabis, to mayoral accountability, to continuing to build more housing in the city. We gave them an ambitious plan, they delivered for us.
You often don't see the everyday actions of Albany and Washington, but I cannot tell you we can't get it done without them. I want them to just say a few words. I'm going to bring on Assemblywoman Hyndman and then the amazing ever-presence of our partner in so many different initiatives, Assemblywoman Rajkumar.
State Assemblymember Alicia Hyndman: Thank you very much. I just want to give a shout-out to the who runs the ship here, the president of York College, President Schrader, and her team. I see all her team all around. I just have to say this about the numbers that were said to you are not a joke because when you decrease unemployment for Black folk, it's not just Black folk that benefits, everyone else rises, every other group rises when it comes to employment.
I want to thank the mayor for your partnership and delivering on your promises to Southeast Queens and with my great partners right here. You're right. We just came from JFK Airport. My first job as an undocumented teen was right here on Jamaica Avenue. That tells me that we want to make sure continuously these people leave here today with hope and a career change because when their lives change, their families change.
I thank York College for being that economic engine from the airport to fruition, for we say from the cradle to the grave. We want to make sure that Southeast Queens delivers on every promise we make to our constituents. Thank you.
State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: Well, good afternoon, York College.
It is a beautiful day to get hired, and this is the place where dreams are made. Under this mayor's leadership, Black unemployment is at a historic low. It dropped 26 percentage points since 2019. That is a truly significant number. This is a really significant moment in our city's history because we have right now in power, the second Black mayor who came up from our communities.
That's why we're seeing these historic numbers. Black unemployment is now below 8 percent, the first time it's been that low since 2019. Now allow me to reintroduce myself. I am State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, and that's some Jay-Z for you, borough president. I am the first Indian American woman elected in this state. There's a reason that I'm standing here.
My mom was born in a mud hut in India. My parents came here with just $300, and that's it. The reason I'm standing here is because I was connected to opportunity. My family was connected, just like the families here are being connected today. I really want to applaud Mayor Adams and this entire administration for seeing every part of this city and delivering opportunity to all people of this city. We're not stopping here. Today we are launching Run This Town where we're going to make sure that we continue to reach into every corner of this city and bring everybody all the way up. Thank you so much.
Commissioner Pinnock: Thank you so much. Today is the day to remain connected to opportunities listed. It is time for us as New Yorkers to run this town. That does conclude our formal aspect of today's program. At this time, I'll turn it over for on-topic questions.
We can wrap it up. Thank you, New York. It's time to run this town.
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