Former councilman launches local job website
TRENTON » It’s the economy, stupid.
Former city councilman Duncan Harrison Jr. is pushing to reduce Trenton’s high rate of unemployment and gun violence by promoting local job creation.
“We hear the outcry,” Harrison said Wednesday in an interview with The Trentonian. “Well, there’s a lot of shootings going on. People need help. People need jobs. As my grandfather always said, ‘The best way to stop a bullet is with a job.’”
New Jersey’s unemployment rate soared to 16.8% earlier this summer amid a COVID-19 public health emergency that forced many businesses to close for weeks or months. At the same time, the capital city has seen an uptick in violent crime, recording its 25th homicide of 2020 earlier this week.
Seeking to make a difference, Harrison and business partner Justin Tyler co-founded a hyper-local jobs board known as Mercer County Works.
“The premise of Mercer County Works comes from wanting to help people get meaningful employment,” Harrison said. “Once people are able to go to work and provide for families, especially locally, it helps stimulate the local economy.”
Harrison served on Trenton City Council from July 2014 through June 2018 as an at-large legislator. He continues to work as the associate executive director of The Father Center of NJ, formerly known as UIH Family Partners, a nonprofit social services organization, and he launched MercerCountyWorks.com about two months ago.
Mercer County Works is comparable to major job boards like Indeed or Monster, but, “We provide more of a personal touch as well as we focus on the local economy and local jobs,” Harrison said. “Our job board has a feature built-in — once you register there is a messaging tool where you can message the hiring manager. With us, we look at every résumé.”
“We have certified professional résumé writers on staff,” Harrison said, adding the co-founder Tyler is one of them.
Tyler is a marketing director for an American private school in Doha, Qatar, and founder of Résumés by J. Tyler, a career services firm, according to a news release announcing the launch of Mercer County Works.
Both hailing from Trenton, Harrison has known Tyler for about 20 years, according to the former councilman.
“We’ve known each other for a long time, and we’ve had the same passion,” Harrison said. “We want to help people get the careers they deserve.
We want to create a website where we talk directly to employees and people go on the website on their cellphone and find a job right there in the palm of their hand.”
Harrison said Mercer County Works is a “winwin” for jobseekers and job creators, especially local employers committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.
“It is our strong belief that companies that are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion are more successful as well as companies that are re-entry friendly,” Harrison said, adding employers should judge jobseekers “not on their past but the skills and merits they have.”
A former elected official who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2018, Harrison knows many of the politicians in the Trenton area.
The former councilman will reach out to municipal officials and to the Mercer County One-Stop Career Center in the coming weeks, he said, asking them to partner with his newly created jobs board to help put people to work.
“We are definitely looking for employers who are hiring for remote jobs as well as those who take the necessary precautions to make sure employees are safe,” Harrison said. “We look forward to working with our local legislators and municipalities to help as many people as we can to get gainful employment or launch their careers.”
New Jersey’s unemployment rate fell by 3 percentage points in July to 13.8% driven exclusively by job gains in the private sector, for local governments and other public entities slashed thousands of jobs statewide, according to data released Thursday.
With employers looking to hire, “We want to make sure we really wrap career services around the individual,” Harrison said, “to make sure they have every tool they need to successfully get the job.”