Navigating Uncertain Waters: NYC Workforce Professionals In The Age Of Covid-19

As New York City navigates its long road to economic recovery in the wake of Covid-19, workforce development professionals will play a powerful role in reconnecting New Yorkers to fairly paid, stable, and fulfilling work. And yet, as the new report from the Center for New York City Affairs and the Workforce Professionals Training Institute demonstrates, workforce professionals face a daunting array of challenges in the form of low pay, pay inequity, frustration with a lack of creative autonomy on the job, and low morale about long-term opportunities in the field. Drawing on responses to a survey fielded from March to May 2021, this report details both the new challenges workforce professionals have faced throughout Covid, and the structural issues that the Covid era has only made clearer. Workers express high rates of belief in and commitment to the mission of their jobs, but persistent financial insecurity prevents many dedicated workers from fully focusing on their jobs or imagining a long-term future for themselves in the field. Among other key findings, Navigating Uncertain Waters: NYC Workforce Professionals in the Age of Covid-19reveals worries regarding layoffs, as well as serious financial pressures facing workforce professionals --- pressures that often differ across gender lines, with women facing greater financial stressors than their male counterparts. And it lays out key factors that must be considered as the sector helps the city advance toward an equitable economic recovery from the pandemic.

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