JERSEY CITY – According to February statistics released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor on Wednesday, Jersey City continues its rapid and steep decline in unemployment.
Jersey City’s unemployment rate is currently 6.1 percent, down 4.4 percentage points from 10.5 percent when Mayor Steven Fulop took office in June of 2013, the largest decline of any city in the region.
“We see the numbers, and we see continued job growth, but we see it best when we look at what’s happening across Jersey City,” said Mayor Fulop.”Last week, we broke ground on a new residential development in Bergen Lafayette that is creating dozens of construction jobs and which will be a magnet for more investment in the area. We also cut the ribbon on three new small businesses, something we are doing nearly every week now.”
Fulop said Jersey City’s sustained growth in employment is due directly to a comprehensive approach to attract residential development and new businesses, creating more than 9,000 thousand jobs ranging from new small businesses to construction jobs to corporate jobs. Incentive policies to grow development in all neighborhoods has led to Jersey City currently experiencing the greatest construction activity in its history, with 6,000 units under construction and another 18,000 approved.
Since Mayor Fulop took office, more than 150 small businesses have opened in Jersey City, including over 50 restaurants, due to an unprecedented small business investment by the Fulop Administration to improve the Jersey City Building Department to expedite approvals.
Last week, the city broke ground on an 83-unit residential project in Bergen-Lafayette, the largest in Ward F in decades creating dozens of construction jobs, and on a 44-story tower in Ward E in addition to announcing the employment of 1,000 young people as part of the Jersey City summer employment program.
To further administration policies to attract both new businesses and residential development to Jersey City, this week, the Fulop Administration launched the second wave of a $1.2 million marketing campaign through a public/private partnership – with ads on NYC subways and buses, PATH trains, and online.
Along with the launch of a new City Hall AmeriCorps VISTA project focused on job creation and job placement, the city also developed a new Innovation Team to address Jersey City’s most complex and challenging issues with an initial focus on the revitalization of main street business districts – which are home to hundreds of local jobs.
This includes enacting of expending project labor agreements with stricter abatement compliance. A study last week by Rutgers University showed that Jersey City’s Earned Sick Leave ordinance enacted in 2013, showed that business was better in one or more categories due to the sick leave law.
Fulop said the Jersey City Employment and Training Program (JCETP) has also expanded to offer a variety of new training and vocational programs, including an EMT certification course with the Jersey City Medical Center-Barnabas Health, CDL and logistics training, and a construction skills apprenticeship program with the Hudson County Building Trades.
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