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Baraka Launches Ambitious Plan To Drastically Cut Unemployment

Alexandra Hill

City officials in Newark, along with a parade of corporate partners, launched a new initiative at city hall today in an effort to drastically reduce the city’s unemployment rate. Mayor Ras Baraka says the Hire Buy Live Newark partnership extends beyond city government to involve Newark's colleges and universities, hospitals, and numerous corporations to create training and job opportunities for more than 2000 residents by the year 2020.

“ I don’t think anything like, with all of us together, has ever been attempted, its been a lot of talk, but this has never been done at this level, at this magnitude, with this many partners at the table, and particularly with a cross-section of partners that does not just involve the corporate community, but it also involves the university, the institutions, the public sector, the faith alliance, the institute for social justice, Newark Alliance, everybody’s at the table.”

The growing list of Hire. Buy. Live. Newark partners include City of Newark, PNCT, Prudential, RWJ Barnabas Health, Rutgers-Newark, PSEG. Panasonic, LISC, the Victoria Foundation, Audible, United Airlines, NJ Institute of Technology, Edison Properties, the NJ Institute for Social Justice, the Newark Alliance, the Newark Anchor Collaborative, Maher Terminals, The Newark Community Development Network (NCDN),  Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Prudential Center, Horizon, Verizon, and the City-wide Interfaith Clergy Council.

Credit Alexandra Hill
Mayor Ras Baraka announces launch of Hire Buy Live Newark at City Hall.

Newark2020 is the Hire. Buy. Live initiative aimed at cutting unemployment. The partners are building a system that includes training and hiring pathways to the jobs identified as being available to Newark residents. Only 18% of the jobs in Newark are held by city residents, a proportion much lower than most major cities. Newark 2020 aims to change that equation. It is a collaborative hiring strategy in which partners commit to identifying a set number of specific job slots over the course of the next four years that will need to be filled. The participants are building a system that includes training and hiring pathways to the jobs available to Newark residents.

Every unemployed and underemployed Newark resident is eligible to benefit from Newark2020.

Alexandra Hill began her work with WBGO in June of 2012 in the news department. A graduate of the Rutgers Newark journalism program, Alexandra was also a student of WBGO News Director Doug Doyle. Alexandra has since become the lead general assignment reporter, afternoon news anchor, and producer of the award winning live call in show Newark Today. Since working for WBGO Alexandra has covered politics in and around Newark including the 2014 mayoral campaign of Mayor Ras Baraka as well as the senate campaigns of former Newark Mayor and now U.S. Senator Cory Booker in both 2013 and 2014. Alexandra also covers a host of human-interest stories, and has been recognized by the New York Association Of Black Journalists for her piece entitled Sheltering Newark’s Homeless.