A 100-year-old organization with 98 local affiliates, the National Urban League provides services to 2.1 million people a year.
Rhashawn D. Bunn of Springfield, center, talks with Kristal S. Burgos, left, and Lucy F. Perez, right, human relations administrator of Springfield Public Schools Tuesday at the Urban League Job and Career Forum at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.SPRINGFIELD – Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League has an straightforward outline of the nation’s priorities.
“Job creation, job creation, job creation, job creation,” Morial said Tuesday during a meeting with The Republican’s editorial board. “Out of this recession, the one thing that is becoming clear is that there have been fundamental changes to our economy. We have lost jobs that are not coming back. This was not just a regular part of the business cycle.”
Morial was in Springfield as part of a seven-city jobs tour of New England with stops in Boston, Providence, here in Springfield then on to Hartford, New Haven, Conn., Bridgeport, Conn., and Stamford, Conn.
It all leads up to the Urban League’s 2011 Annual Conference at the Boston Convention Center July 27 to 30 entitled “Jobs Rebuild America”. The event will feature a job fair, a small business fair and a college fair all open to the general public, Morial said.
Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League in this file photo Locally, Morial visited a job fair hosted Tuesday by the Urban League of Springfield at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
There were 40 employers and 1,000 job seekers at the fair, said Henry M. Thomas III, president and CEO of the Urban League of Springfield. A number of people at the event have college degrees, Thomas said. “The response tells me that the unemployment condition for Springfield is dramatically acute,” “It is a lot more urgent than some may think.”
The city’s unemployment rate was 12.9 percent in March compared with 8.2 percent statewide. April numbers will be available later this month.
Thomas estimated that the unemployment rate among minorities in Springfield and surrounding cities is closer to 25 percent of the adult population.
Susan Pare
“I met no fewer than 50 management candidates,” she said, outlining the career trajectory the company offers for both those without college degrees (benefits include tuition reimbursement for part-time supervisors) and college grads.
Earlier this year, the National Urban League released its jobs plan. The plan calls for summer youth employment programs, bulked-up job training, tax reforms, multinational trade programs, increased small-business lending, increased minority participation in information and communication technologies and public-private job partnerships. The plan also calls for “Green Empowerment Zones” that give tax breaks to company that locate environmentally-friendly industries in places with high unemployment.
“We want to create incentives for people to make investments and create jobs in America’s hardest-hit areas,” Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans, said.
A 100-year-old organization with 98 local affiliates, the National Urban League provides services to 2.1 million people a year.
Morial said more people sought out the Urban League in 2010 than in any other year of its history. They were largely driven by the recession an, job troubles or looming mortgage foreclosures.
“I like to think that when people come to us, they have that fight-back spirit,” Morial said.