Unemployment

Lisa Dolak and Fareed Zakaria on the Need For Infrastructure Investment

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Lisa Dolak and Fareed Zakaria on the Need For Infrastructure Investment

After returning to Syracuse from a weekend at home, I decided to catch up with Ivory Tower, which I had DVR’ed. Moderated by Barbara Fought (Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University), this edition of Ivory Tower featured a powerhouse panel including: Tim Byrnes (Colgate University), Bob Greene (Cazenovia College), Bob Spitizer (SUNY Cortland), Kristi Andersen (Maxwell School of Syracuse University) and Lisa Dolak (Syracuse University College of Law).

The panel discussed President Obama’s State of the Union Address and its most promising proposals. During this discussion, Professor Lisa Dolak described the President’s call to invest in infrastructure as a “win-win” (9:45)  She explained that investing in infrastructure would not only fix our crumbling roads and bridges but would also put millions of Americans back to work.

Fareed Zakaria agrees and goes a step further.  According to Zakaria, investing in infrastructure would “win-win-win.”  In addition to the benefits Prof. Dolak describes, Zakaria points out that infrastructure spending is fiscally responsible.  This is so for two reasons.  First, fixing our infrastructure is an investment that needs to be made whether sooner or later.  However, if we wait to fix our our roads and bridges the costs will be greater since there will be further, more serious deterioration.  Second, investing in infrastructure would boost growth and thereby decrease the debt and deficit.

Filling the Skills Gap: Matching Jobs with the Jobless Through Innovative Internships

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Filling the Skills Gap: Matching Jobs with the Jobless Through Innovative Internships

Last Sunday, 60 Minutes ran a story about an innovative jobs program, “Year Up.”  Year Up is an intensive year long job training program that matches poor urban youth with Fortune 500 companies, teaching them the specific skills necessary for the thousands of jobs that remain unfilled.  

Here is how the story began:

It may surprise you to learn that even in this time of stubbornly high unemployment there are hundreds of thousands of good jobs available that companies are finding hard to fill.

But one Wall Street veteran believes he’s found an overlooked source of talent that could be the answer. 

He started something called Year Up — a year-long jobs training boot camp for some of the country’s most disadvantaged young people. And so far thousands of graduates are now working at companies like J.P. Morgan, American Express and Facebook. The result is that many of the country’s most powerful CEOs are finding that they can do well by also doing good. 

Syracuse University Helps Wounded Vets Start Small Businesses

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Syracuse University Helps Wounded Vets Start Small Businesses

Tonight, 60 Minutes ran a story about  veteran Mike Haynie, who has created a course to teach vets how to launch their own businesses at the Whitman School of Management   The segment starts as follows: 

In January, Walmart pledged to hire any recent veteran who wanted a job – the company projects that could be 100,000 vets in the next five years. That’s a big commitment at a time when it’s needed.

 

There are three million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and they face a host of problems when they come home. It’s not just unemployment, nearly half have a disability because of their service. Most tragically, more soldiers killed themselves last year than died at the hands of the enemy.

 

One veteran turned business school professor has an innovative solution to help them succeed as civilians: give the vets a new mission — business ownership. Funded in part by Walmart, PepsiCo and other companies, he started a small business incubator, tailor-made to help disabled vets trade in their combat boots for business suits.