The Onondaga Citizens League has embarked on its latest community study to put real faces on the area’s "economic ecosystem"…who gets work, who doesn’t, and who makes those decisions. WAER News stopped by the first of three “scoping” sessions to learn more.
Understanding the diversity of the Central New York economy is probably a good place to start. That's what this group tried to tackle.
"What jobs are out there?"
"What are we doing now. Very simple question. Should I write that down?"
"You bet."
The purpose of these initial scoping, or design sessions, is for community members and stakeholders to use their knowledge and experiences to set baselines for the study and where it should go. Mel Menon is talent and community engagement manager at Darco Manufacturing, and OCL study co-chair. She says the citizens league has already done some preliminary research, and takes into account certain assumptions.
"A unique marker in our region is the diversity of our economic ecosystem," Menon said. "We assume there have been changes, or key periods of change, that have happened over time. We assume that we currently have industries that form an economic base."
Which today is commonly referred to as "Eds and Meds".
"We assume that there are disparities in the kinds of wages people earn within each of these fields, and we want to examine that," Menon said." We also want to look at other industries, things that are emerging in our economy, we want to look at trends, see where we're headed. We want to get a good sense of what the wages will look like, the jobs, and nature of the work will look like as we move forward."
They’ll also try to break down the impact on individual communities . Jay Subedi is an OCL board member and housing service coordinator at the Interfaith Works Center for New Americans.
"See what's going on, how many jobs are there, what the skillsets are, what are the wage disparities between the different ethnic minorities...African Americans, new Americans, the refugee populations."
Subedi says the topic of the study is timely, given that Syracuse has the highest concentration of poverty among African Americans and Hispanics in the nation.
The next scoping session will be held Wednesday, August 24th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Le Moyne College's Mitchell Hall, Room 113. The final session is Friday from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. at WCNY's Education Center, 415 W. Fayette St. All are open to the public.
