By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER MANHATTAN — For anyone living in Northern Manhattan, it should be no surprise that unemployment in the neighborhoods there surpasses that of many areas in the rest of the city.
The official unemployment rate for people living in Inwood and Washington Heights is 14 percent, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. That's higher than any other neighborhood in Manhattan, and higher than any area in New York City, except for East New York in Brooklyn.
Sara Farimani, director of Workforce Development at the nonprofit Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC), said she believes the numbers are even worse than what is reported, coming closer to 17 percent.
In the face of those staggering figures, Farimani and a team will host a job fair on Thursday in an attempt to match workers with employers for a host of positions in health care, sales and retail, customer service, administrative and security jobs.
"The benefit of holding a job fair is that higher skilled job seekers may not think about going to a community based organization for their needs, but they will definitely go to a job fair," she said.
Farimani said she hopes to see anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 applicants at the fair.
"We don’t usually have the capacity to see such a large number of people, so this is a great opportunity to see people with different profiles."
The job fair will be held at the United Palace at 4140 Broadway on Thursday, Oct. 21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The fair is organized by NMIC, Christ Community United Church and the NYC Business Solutions Center. Job seekers can contact NMIC at 212-822-8324 for more information.
