NYC tech jobs for all types
The loss of Amazon one year ago notwithstanding, New York has without question solidified its position as a preeminent global tech hub. Big-name companies like Google and Facebook continue to bet on the city’s future while more than 9,000 startups across the five boroughs vie to become the next household name. And as the tech industry has grown increasingly intertwined with the local economy, it has simultaneously become the city’s most reliable source of new goodpaying jobs.
But a new report shows that, despite major strides, many low-income New Yorkers don’t have access to the education and training they need to land these jobs. While the proliferation of tech jobs in the city presents a generational opportunity to lift New Yorkers out of poverty and reduce inequality, immediate action is needed to ensure tech’s growth is fair and equitable.
The organizations we run, Center for an Urban Future and Tech:NYC, just published the first-ever report mapping New York’s tech training and education programs. Supported by the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund, Google, Bloomberg and Verizon, our research finds significant gaps in the reach and scope of these programs that limit residents’ ability to take advantage of the industry’s growing presence here.
For example, most of the tech training programs accessible to low-income adults around the city focus on basic digital literacy and beginner-level skills, and only a fraction offer in-depth, career-oriented training that can bridge into tech careers. Tech skills-building programs are also unevenly distributed across the city, with Manhattan home to significantly more programs than any other borough.
The de Blasio administration should be commended for taking a crucial first step with its Computer Science for All initiative aimed at offering computer skills education to all students by 2025. But our report also finds that more resources must be dedicated to tech education programs for children in grades K-5, a potential problem given growing evidence that early exposure to foundational computing education can make a big difference in closing achievement gaps for low-income students.
If we don’t act now to close these gaps, the life-changing opportunities accompanying the growth of the tech sector here will be unattainable for struggling New Yorkers.
But a central reason why New York is a global epicenter for tech and many other industries is that the people who live and work here view challenges like this as opportunities. By recognizing where our tech training programs fall short and implementing fixes now, we can help build a tech workforce that is truly representative of our diverse population, a goal that few tech hubs have been able to accomplish.
We’re calling on city leaders and tech employers to commit to a bold, long-term agenda to expand and improve the tech skills-building ecosystem, and our report outlines specific recommendations for how to get there.
Most importantly, city leaders should expand and improve K-12 computing education. Researchers and tech employers say teaching children to think computationally — how to ask questions and solve problems with computers — is an essential building block for future success in tech fields. We need to ensure every student has inschool access to computational thinking and computing education beginning in kindergarten by 2025.
We should also improve postsecondary education offerings and make the training necessary for landing a tech job more accessible to adults. That’s why we’re calling on city leaders to expand in-depth tech workforce training programs to reach at least 5,000 low-income adults annually by 2025, up from just a few hundred today, and to triple the number of CUNY students who earn postsecondary STEM degrees and credentials by 2030.
New York has an opportunity to set the worldwide standard for equitable tech growth by building a diverse and inclusive tech workforce — and realizing that future will require bold action today.