San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
New Year’s Revolution
Let’s declare 2021 the Year of the Worker. by: Romanita Matta-Barrera, Executive Director of SA Works.
2020 tested our strength and resourcefulness—and in many ways, San
Antonio passed. Our regional philanthropic community, private sector, and city and county governments responded to the COVID-19 outbreak quickly, deploying resources to the most vulnerable and creating pathways for affected workers to safely access training and employment.
At the peak of the pandemic (March and April 2020) unemployment claims hovered around 32,000 per week, resulting in more than 312,000 unique claims from the end of February to mid-October. Read the latest SA Works Jobs Report for an in-depth look at our job market and the workforce programs designed to help people transfer their skills into new careers. In 2021, we have an opportunity to expand these programs in a smart and collaborative way that will give the power of education to every worker who wants it.
63 percent of the people filing unemployment claims during this period have a high school equivalency diploma or less. Nearly half of these claimants are younger than 35 and female, and when disaggregated by race, the data tells us even more about who needs access to training and education as well as the wraparound services such as childcare and transportation they need for success.
Both the City of San Antonio and Bexar County launched emergency workforce programs last year. “Train for Jobs SA,” a $75 million investment, and “Bexar County Strong,” an $18 million investment connected affected workers with support services, jobs, work experience, and training programs. Local officials called on trusted organizations to lead the community triage, and I can proudly say SA Works and the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation (SAEDF) were tapped to work directly with employers and industry to identify training and hiring needs, and help connect affected workers to on-the-job training
opportunities in high-demand, high-wage jobs.
In the midst of a contentious political year, San Antonians responded to this now or never moment by voting to pass the “SA: Ready to Work” proposition, which reallocates sales tax revenue to extend and expand the City’s workforce recovery program into 2025. This bold policy and funding move garnered a credit positive response from Moody’s Investor Service, stating that the “increased employment and higher salaries will boost residents’ purchasing power and ultimately lift sales tax revenue, one of the city’s largest revenue sources.”
Mary C. Daly, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, recently said,
“we need to become evidence-based optimists [and] feed hope with intentionality.”
This resonated with me, as we at the SAEDF and SA Works, continue to work alongside chambers, non-profits, education, private and public sector partners to bring both hope and help to our community. I’d like to call on our community to join us in a New Year’s workforce revolution, whereby we choose to put workers at the center of our efforts. We owe it to ourselves to radically collaborate to get people back into jobs and focus on skills that will make them future ready.
At SA Works, we partner with private companies, local governments, education and training providers, nonprofits, and workforce organizations to learn everything we can about the gaps and barriers to people accessing training and meaningful work. The evidence tells us that we have ample opportunity to build up talent in our region—join us in our optimism and help us feed hope with intentional action.