New York City's unemployment rate hit a 16-year high, jumping to 10.3 percent, well above the state (8 percent) and national (9.7 percent) levels.
Economists blame last year’s collapse of investment banking giant Lehman Brothers and the continuing layoffs on Wall Street for driving more than 415,000 city residents out of work, nearly doublling the 5.9 percent unemployment rate last August.
The state labor department has declared the financial sector in a state of emergency, putting $11 million in federal funds towards training former Wall Streeters for other careers, the New York Times reports.
“Our economists don’t see the financial-services sector ever coming back as strong as it was,” state labor commissioner M. Patricia Smith said.
Under the $22 million grant, approximately 1,500 former financiers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will be trained for jobs in other fields such as health care and education, the Times reports.
The money is available to anyone who has lost a job since June 2008 at any one of the three dozen financial companies on the list, mostly the large firms.
Former Bear Stearns analyst Marisha Clinton told the Times about her travails searching for another job in the financial industry since being laid off last year. Her follow-up position also ended with a pink slip, so she's using her $12,500 subsidy from the state Labor Department to take classes to find another job.
“I’m keeping my options open,” Clinton told the Times. “I’ve been working since I was 14 years old. I’d rather be working than not.”
Gov. David Paterson joined Smith at a press conference earlier this week to discuss the job training, where he warned New York to brace for another year of "tough sledding," the Times reports.
Paterson refuted earlier claims by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that the recession is probably over, saying it "doesn't apply to us."
Despite the gloomy figures, the mayor remained upbeat.
“While the job market is tight,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the Times, “the city is losing jobs at less than half the rate of the rest of the country. This is an important sign that despite the challenges, people continue to be optimistic about the city’s future.”
