Governor Hochul: “The Biden Administration heard our calls, our pleas for help and said, ‘At least can we get Temporary Protective Status for the Venezuelans?’ What does that mean? It means that 40 percent of the people who came here through jungles and mountains and rivers and incredible adversity, they found their way to New York. 40 percent from the country of Venezuela because of the Biden Administration's actions are now eligible to have work authorizations and TPS, Temporary Protective Status, in 30 days.”
Hochul: “So, we are going to be able to solve this. People want to work hard, they always do. It's part of who we are. And I'll tell you, as long as I'm Governor, we'll never forget who we are. We are that great city, we are that great state that people have always emulated, people have always been attracted to come to New York City because of who we are and how welcoming and good we are to our people.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the State has identified more than 18,000 job openings with nearly 400 employers who are willing to hire migrants and asylum seekers who have attained legal work status in the United States. This announcement comes just one month after Governor Hochul directed the New York State Department of Labor to begin connecting businesses with job openings to migrants and asylum seekers who have attained legal work status. The Governor has focused on securing legal work status for migrants and asylum seekers, including successfully pressuring the federal government to grant Temporary Protected Status to individuals from Venezuela, so these individuals can leave the shelter system and begin living independently.
B-ROLL of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. They say bread is life. Life is occurring right here. I just came through an amazing tour of a kitchen where young people are being launched on incredible careers. And I actually took a couple lessons on how to slice and dice without losing any of your fingers. So, it was very important to me.
So, I want to thank everyone who's been involved in this. Leslie Abbey, the vision behind this project, Hot Bread Kitchen, using the former studios of the Food Network right here in Chelsea to be a place where young people and people of all ages can learn skills that are so highly in demand right now. There are hundreds, if not thousands of employers all over because we've become a foodie nation. You know, growing up, you know, if we had macaroni and cheese and Spam, it was a good night, okay? So, I love the fact that we've evolved to a place where we actually value how our food is prepared and what the ingredients are and who makes them. And so, they are on the cusp of a great future, and I want to thank everyone here for their engagement in making this happen.
I also want to recognize our Senator from here, Senator Brad Hoylman. This is your neighborhood. Great things going on here. Andrew Rigie is here, who will be speaking shortly from the NYC Hospitality Alliance. Andrew, you've had a lot on your plate, so to speak, especially during the pandemic. I know we worked closely together at a time when our city was struggling. It was literally brought down to its knees. People were not going out to the restaurants, and we innovated as we do always in New York. We innovated with outdoor dining and the takeout, and we had drinks to go, and everybody was happy again. But you were there during the darkest hour, and I thank you as well.
Also, one of our home-grown heroes of this industry, someone who has given such a credibility to everyone in the hospitality industry by his passion for not just his work, but also for doing right. We think about, my mother used to always say, “Go into the world and do well, but more importantly, go into the world and do good.” Danny Meyer does that every single day, and I want to thank you for what you've done at Union Square Hospitality and just being so engaged and so concerned about the community at large and the people that have been given opportunities to have the dignity of a good job. And so, Danny Meyer, you'll be hearing from him as well. Let's give him a round of applause.
You know, for months, I've been saying the key to solving the asylum seeker crisis, and it's a crisis because of the volume of people. The key is so simple. It's so crystal clear. They came to work, so let's put them to work. Let's do that. And the question was: Will there be people ready to hire them? And that was the unknown. That is something we weren't sure. Will there be enough businesses? And today we're here to highlight a business, before I make our announcement. To an industry that showed up, and I mentioned Leslie a minute ago, but, Hot Bread Kitchen, not just hosting us here today, but, stepping up to help our neighbors in a time of their greatest need. And I thank you for that. And all of our other individuals who are part of this story.
Our state continues to face two simultaneous, really intense problems that need to be solved. A crisis, we would call them. One is the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded over the last 15 months. People coming here in search of a better life, search of a job. But also, the crisis of a workforce shortage, worker shortage. And what we have realized is that it's not solved. You can't go create a hologram of a person to go work in a job. You need real people. And this state has always thrived by embracing people from other countries, other lands, people coming without knowing the language. Maybe they didn't have a lot of skills, but they were given a chance. And that's what we're talking about here today, giving people that chance.
The challenge for us now is there's so many jobs open that it actually has potential to cripple our economy if we don't find more people to take these jobs. It is that dire. Something that is completely foreign to me. As someone who grew up in an old rust belt area of the state, now emerged with a new identity, a new mojo, if you will. But Buffalo was a place that I grew up, and the jobs were just fleeing out the door. Unemployment rate was 15, 17, 18 percent, and the thought that we'd ever get unemployment under 4 percent was just—it would never happen in my lifetime.
Well, I'm really proud that since I've been Governor for two years, unemployment has dropped 42 percent, going from 6.9 percent to 3.9 percent. And so, what that means is, that's good. It means if you want a job, you'll find one. But what does that do to the employers who can only exist because of the manpower, the womanpower that comes from workers? So, we have a two for one solution here. Now we have all these people who want to be here. I have all these jobs that are open. You marry the two together and you've solved the problems.
So, last month, I directed our State Department of Labor, and Roberta Reardon, I want to thank her for what she has done especially during the pandemic, getting billions of dollars out to people who needed that unemployment check just to be able to survive without their job. I want to thank you and your team. But now Roberta and her team has stepped up to help me with another crisis. And we asked them to identify and start connecting employers with eligible asylum seekers and migrants who are on the path to work authorizations. We stood up a portal. Doesn't sound real exciting. Like, “Oh, you have a portal stood up.” This is a big deal. This is a big deal, because we wanted to have a registration process ready to go, in place. So, when the migrants could finally work, and we did this, we didn't know at the time, how long it would take, whether or not we'd get the support we wanted from the federal government because until that time, it would take 180 days, at least, before someone could apply.
Now, with this opportunity that was announced literally on September 20th, 12 days ago, less than 2 weeks ago. The Biden Administration heard our calls, our pleas for help and said, “At least can we get Temporary Protective Status for the Venezuelans?” What does that mean? It means that 40 percent of the people who came here through jungles and mountains and rivers and incredible adversity, they found their way to New York. 40 percent from the country of Venezuela because of the Biden Administration's actions are now eligible to have work authorizations and TPS, Temporary Protective Status, in 30 days. And those who came before July 31st are actually eligible for this. So, this is the best news we could have had in this short time frame as we've been trying to find solutions to this problem.
So, I want to say, when we put out the call not sure what the answer would be to employers. Are you willing to consider hiring these people once they can start working? And literally tomorrow, the window opens for people to start applying for TPS. And luckily for me, because I tested it out, the app is simple. It's not cumbersome, it's easy to do, and we're going to have literally hundreds of people out there trying to help identify them.
But the question I had was, will the employers be interested in this program? Well, guess what? We already have nearly 400 employers who stood up who said, “Yes. Yes, we will embrace them. We'll hire them. We'll give them that shot at the American dream that they've wanted for themselves and their families.” So as soon as they were able to work, we'll have the people available. But how many jobs does almost 400 employers equate to—18,000 jobs are already available, waiting for people who signed up in the portal. So, that's incredible. That can help solve our problems and at least be a start toward reducing the number of people who need shelter in our city.
And I'm really proud of these individuals who said, yes, sort of leaping into the unknown. How is this going to work? What should I do? But they put their names on the dotted line, so to speak, or on their iPads, however they did it, but over 50 percent are from New York City, that means Upstate New York has responded as well, this is not just city driven, 25 percent are in hospitality, 21 percent are in health or social services, 10 percent are manufacturing, five percent retail and 5 percent construction.
So, that's where people can work. And don't assume these are all low skill individuals. Venezuela was once a very prosperous country. Their economy was based on oil. They sent oil around the world. They used to send it to the United States until the embargo. But once they had a change in leadership, if you call it that, dictator, also crime, gangs took over the streets, political chaos, economic decline and the loss of the ability to sell oil. Their country spiraled. And that's why people are fleeing Venezuela. For the first time. We do not have a Venezuelan population because people didn't have to leave that country before. They stayed home. So, now those individuals who came before July 31st, as I have to reinforce that, will be eligible to take these jobs.
So, I'm so proud of the businesses who exemplified to me what's best about our state. They said yes. They remind us that this is the state that has the Statue of Liberty standing in our harbor. And we see that symbol of freedom at a place that my own grandparents passed on that ship that brought them from great poverty in Ireland to be able to be migrant farm workers in South Dakota where the jobs were. That's how far they had to go. And then they could get jobs as domestic servants in Chicago. So yes, we're getting better. Things are looking up. But then they found their way to the promised land of Buffalo, New York. Yes. Could you have found a little warmer place, Grandma and Grandpa? But that's alright.
But that's because they could work in the steel industry. Grandpa worked that hot work. I used to see the pictures of the coke ovens. It is amazing people survived that when he was breathing in. But it was a good job for him. He raised eight kids in a tiny house. And my dad worked there, my uncles worked there, and that was the start of it. But they all came past that Statue of Liberty, like millions and millions of our descendants, our family members. Let's never forget that. Let's never forget that. And this state was built on that premise.
And earlier today I spoke to the Partnership for New York, and we talked to probably close to 200 businesses there. We talked about how we're putting out that call for help. Yes, we need help in Washington. We need help to control the borders. Yes, we do. We need to focus on the borders and make sure that people who really are eligible for asylum are the ones coming in. But I can't control that. I have to deal in the realities of today. The cards we've been dealt, so to speak. And to make sure that we never lose our sense of humanity for these people.
So, we will make this work. We're going to start the process literally tomorrow. We have allocated over $50 million from the state to the city to support local hands-on groups that are out there in the community right now, identifying the Venezuelans, getting the paperwork filled out, getting the app processed, if that's the route they're going to take, and literally get them connected to these jobs.
So, the legal services, the case management, the asylum processing, it's all going on simultaneously. You don't see it. But it's happening in shelters and in offices. We gave state office space to the federal government, invited them here to help us process this faster. So, we can only help those who are here.
We're going to do that. We're going to focus on them. But we also have to be cognizant of the fact that this is not an open invitation to the entire world. We don't have enough capacity to house people. We just don't. So, our hearts are big but sometimes you have to realize our resources are limited. And that's the dual problem we have right now.
So, to be able to take care of these Venezuelans, encourage people to go to other places as well is something we have to continue to do. Because we have to manage the fact that there's 125,000 people right now, up until tomorrow, have not been eligible to work, and have relied on public support for housing.
And so, that is not a sustainable dynamic. It is just not sustainable in the long term. But we've dealt with it. We've dealt with it. And that is what we've worked on. So, I'm going to call on businesses to sign up even more. I am hopeful and continue to press Washington and Congress to open up those work authorizations to more people because again, the Venezuelans is a good start, but it's not going to take care of the people who come in from Mauritania, and Congo, and other parts of South America, Central America, West Africa. We have people from Iraq and Afghanistan coming, people from Russia are coming, because everyone's finding their ways to that southern border. And that's where we need to have more thoughtful controls at that as well.
So, we are going to be able to solve this. People want to work hard, they always do. It's part of who we are. And I'll tell you, as long as I'm Governor, we'll never forget who we are. We are that great city, we are that great state that people have always emulated, people have always been attracted to come to New York City because of who we are and how welcoming and good we are to our people.
So, I want to thank everyone who's been involved in this process thus far and I want to thank our great friend here, Leslie Abbey, to come up and talk about what you're doing right here and the opportunities that we're going to be able to give the people who are in the yellow shirts all around here today—hello everybody.
But also, to those who are coming from another country who are so desperate to get the skills they need so they can go into jobs at places that Andrew and Danny can point them to. So that's how it's all going to work out here and I want to thank everyone involved thus far. Let me bring up Leslie Abbey. Thank you. Thank you.