Westchester County Business Journal 06/25/12 issue

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WCBJ ®

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WESTCHESTER COUNTY

BUSINESS JOURNAL

YOUR only SOURCE FOR regional BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com

June 25, 2012 | VOL. 48, No. 26

Summer job market chilly to county’s youths BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com

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any youths are seeking jobs but not enough companies are offering them through state and county employment programs at the start of this summer. In its third year, Westchester County’s Private Sector Summer Jobs Initiative, a joint effort of the public and private sectors, “is going a little bit slower in comparison to last year,” said Ebony White, the program’s coordinator at The Business Council of Westchester. As of June 19, 30 companies had signed up for

the program with slightly more than 100 jobs to be filled. “We are looking to push forward and make our goal of employing 200 kids in the county,” White said. The jobs program, an initiative of the Business Council and the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Investment Board, last summer hired 184 youths through 55 businesses, generating about $60,000 in salaries. Of those hired, 25 young workers stayed on in permanent jobs. The program was started in 2010 to reduce unemployment among county residents ages 18 to 24 as jobs-creating federal stimulus funding programs were about to expire after two years in the wake of the recession. The program this year offers no government subsidies for participating

Envisioning the next Tappan Zee

businesses. In the program’s first year, “When the companies were getting paid, there were more placements,” said Marsha Gordon, the Business Council president and CEO and a workforce investment board director. “When there was a financial incentive, it obviously made a difference.” Looking to encourage companies to train and hire disadvantaged youths in 12 cities and towns hardest hit by unemployment, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers this year created the New York Youth Works Program. Administered by the state Labor Department, it offers employer tax credits of up to $4,000 for eligible full-time workers between the ages of 16 and Summer job market, page 6

County meets tourism rebound with ad campaign BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com

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Page 2 Ted Zoli, with a model of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston.

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acked by $300,000 in hotel occupancy tax revenue, Westchester County officials this summer will launch an advertising campaign that targets potential visitors within a 100-mile radius of the county. The promotional campaign, “Meet Me in Westchester County,” follows a state-sponsored economic impact study that found visitor spending in the county grew by about 8 percent in 2011 to nearly $1.66 billion. That level was only $6 million less than visitor spending here in 2007, before the recession curbed both business and leisure travel and the hotel industry’s meetings and events trade. Visitor spending in the county reached a five-year low in 2009, when it dropped to $1.39 billion. Westchester visitors last year accounted for 54 percent of all visitor spending in the Hudson Valley region, according to the report by Tourism Economics in Philadelphia. Their spending either directly or indirectly supported nearly 24,000 jobs, or 6 percent of all jobs in the county. Those jobs are in the food and beverage sector – which accounted for the County meets tourism rebound, page 6

IN THE DRIVERS SEAT • 18

GOOD THINGS • 42


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