Immigrant Entrepreneurs Creating Jobs and Strengthening the U.S. Economy in Growing Industries

The focus of this report evolved from a 2010 conference at Babson College on "Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Massachusetts" sponsored by The Immigrant Learning Center, Inc. (ILC) from which two key ideas emerged. One is that there is an "immigrant entrepreneurship ecology" that includes immigrant neighborhood storefront businesses; immigrant high-tech and health science entrepreneurs; immigrant non-tech growth businesses; and immigrant transnational businesses. A second idea was that these growing, non-tech industries (including transportation, food and building services) have not attracted much attention. Interestingly, these sectors can be crucial to the expansion of the green economy. Within this context, The ILC decided to look at these three sectors in Massachusetts as well as in New York and Pennsylvania.Moreover, the report dramatically illustrates how immigrant entrepreneurs look for niches in underserved markets. For example, vans and other alternatives to mass transit serve unmet transportation needs in urban areas. Food intended to be a "taste of home" for compatriots in local restaurants and grocery stores becomes popular and influences the eating habits of other Americans. Workers who enter industries like landscaping or cleaning because they don't require much English gain experience and see opportunities to start their own companies. Businesses like these add value to American life by expanding the economy rather than taking away from native businesses

Catch That Bus: Reverse-Commute Challenges Facing Low Income Inner-City Residents of Onondaga County

[Excerpt] Employer concerns about labor shortages for entry-level positions in the suburbs and outlying city neighborhoods prompted county planners to ask Cornell ILR to conduct this study. We organized a series of focus groups with low-income inner-city residents who commute to the suburbs or outlying city neighborhoods and work in health services, hospitality, or warehousing; we also spoke with several supervisors and a transportation planner. We found four major transportation challenges: limited service at non-standard times; out-of-synch schedules; off-schedule and off-route buses; and poorly located bus stops. We highlight several transportation initiatives that have been tried in other communities and propose a series of recommendations that transit planners, the transit company, and employers might consider in order to mitigate the reverse-commute challenges in ways that would benefit all stakeholders

Strengthening Baltimore's Workforce: Reflections and Lessons Learned

The report, Strengthening Baltimore's Workforce: Reflections and Lessons Learned, presents data on program completion, job placement, starting wage and employment retention rates for 1,187 participants. While the outcomes varied by program, most jobseekers benefited on every measure. For example, approximately 80% of participants in the construction program completed training and received at least one credential. Of those placed in jobs, 70% were still employed after six months. Graduates across all programs were able to secure average starting wages of $12 to$18 an hour, much higher than the $8.75 state minimum wage, the report finds.The collaborative is a public/private partnership between Casey, other local and national foundations, corporate donors and representatives of city and state workforce agencies. Collectively, its members have pooled more than$14 million to support sector-specific strategies that provide greater training and job opportunities for residents who face barriers to employment. These efforts are primarily focused on six growing industries: biotechnology, construction, food service, transportation and logistics, environmental sustainability and manufacturing.Baltimore's unemployment rate was 41 times the national average in August 2016, with many residents facing obstacles such as prior criminal convictions, limited math and literacy skills and unstable housing. The report outlines several strategies that have helped the local workforce development effort succeed despite these barriers:collaboration with employers and stakeholders to understand and address labor force needs;programming that includes relevant skill development and industry-recognized certifications;wraparound services, peer groups and supportive instructional approaches to address the barriers jobseekers face;rigorous job placement and post-program follow-up; anda commitment to monitoring and tracking the performance of training programs and allocating resources accordingly.The report calls for additional policy and system reforms to address the inequities that have left many communities disconnected from quality employment and educational opportunities. They include changes to wages, benefits and safety practices, as well as criminal justice reform and an expansion of mental health, addiction and adult education services. Many of the programs have already made notable shifts, including the BioTechnical Institute of Maryland, JumpStart and the Baltimore Center for Green Careers, which expanded job opportunities to individuals without a college degree and those with prior criminal records."These results show what's possible when we focus on the needs of local employers and create opportunities for residents to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to build family-supporting careers," says Allison Gerber, a senior associate at the Foundation. "The next step is to ensure more youth and young adults can benefit from these programs. This report gives us a good outline of what's working, and where we need to build."Considering the breadth of community employment needs, existing sectoral programs operate at a much smaller scale than what Baltimore requires. To expand the scope and ensure more residents can secure family-supporting jobs, the report recommends partners across the city work to increase investment in industry-specific workforce programs, increase the number of quality jobs that are available and educate and prepare more individuals to enter these programs

Financial Innovations Roundtable: Developing practical solutions to scale up integrated community development strategies

Essays from experts affiliated with the “think-do” tank , the Financial Innovations Roundtable, housed at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire

Let\u27s Ride the Bus: Reverse-Commute Challenges Facing Low-Income Inner City Residents of Onondaga County (2009 Report)

This is the second and final phase of our investigation into the reverse-commute challenges facing low-income inner-city residents in Onondaga County. With lower-wage jobs proliferating outside the city core, our findings confirm that transportation remains one of the greatest obstacles to landing and keeping entry-level work. The current transit system does not meet the needs of low-income workers living in the city or employers based in outlying neighborhoods or the suburbs. Although a majority of manufacturing employers contacted for this study said transportation shortfalls do not affect their ability to hire and retain workers, other stakeholders jobseekers, job developers, service providers, county planners, and transit professionals—insist the problem is real: Jobseekers with few skills and limited access to transportation struggle to find employment while employers in other key sectors, notably hospitality and health services, contend with the consequences in the form of high turnover, tardiness, absences, and vacancies, as noted in our 2008 report, Catch That Bus... Inadequacies in the local transit system will affect the county\u27s longer-term economic vitality. Current concerns about air pollution, environmental conservation, energy costs, and strained municipal budgets add to the urgency of addressing the interrelated issues of employment, transportation, economic development, and sprawl. Collaboration among key stakeholders—the County, Centro, employers, private transit operators, service providers, and town boards--is necessary to advance the parties\u27 mutual interests

FROM DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Documents circulating in paper form are increasingly being substituted by itselectronic equivalent in the modern office today so that any stored document can be retrievedwhenever needed later on. The office worker is already burdened with information overload, soeffective and effcient retrieval facilities become an important factor affecting worker productivity. The key thrust of this article is to analyse the benefits and importance of interaction betweendocument management and knowledge management. Information stored in text-based documentsrepresents a valuable repository for both the individual worker and the enterprise as a whole and ithas to be tapped into as part of the knowledge generation process.document management, knowledge management, Information and communication technologies

Cross-collaborative supply chains. How logistics services contribute to social responsibility.

Abstract Purpose - The collaboration between profit and nonprofit entities has become a burning topic in supply chain management studies and corporate strategies. The world’s largest logistics service providers (LSPs) have been developing several practices improving social responsibility while collaborating with nonprofit actors. In particular, their core competences and offered services become extremely relevant in the context of humanitarian logistics initiatives. A key purpose of this article is to examine the projects currently undertaken by LSPs in humanitarian logistics. Methodology/Approach - This research follows a qualitative approach based on multiple case studies. Findings - The paper provides an overview of the leading LSPs’ involvement in humanitarian logistics and presents an analysis of their current “best practices” services in disaster relief with high impact in terms of social responsibility. Research Limitations/implications - There has been increased interest on the part of international academic and professional communities in humanitarian logistics. This study constitutes a platform for benchmarking analysis of logistics services to assure effective implementation of social responsibility principles. Originality/Value of paper - Humanitarian logistics is a rather new field in logistics management. This paper addresses the innovative socially responsible initiatives undertaken by the main international LSPs in the area of humanitarian logistics. Keywords - logistics services, logistics service providers, humanitarian logistics and supply chain management, disaster relief, social responsibility, profit/nonprofit collaboration Type of paper - Research pape

The Governors Speak 2007: A Report on the State-of-the-State Addresses of the Nation's and U.S. Territories' Governors

As improved economic conditions and higher state revenues offer governors an opportunity to invest in long-term priorities, most are focusing action on strengthening their state's prospects for long-term economic growth, according to the 2007 state-of-the-state addresses. For most of this new century, state budgets have struggled to keep pace with education and health care spending. However, improved economic conditions are enabling governors to pursue bolder initiatives that focus on building their state's innovation economy and knowledge-based enterprises

Improving health and public safety through knowledge management

This paper reports on KM in public healthcare and public safety. It reflects the experiences of the author as a CIO (Chief Information Officer) in both industries in Australia and New Zealand. There are commonalities in goals and challenges in KM in both industries. In the case of public safety a goal of modern policing theory is to move more towards intelligence-driven practice. That means interventions based upon research and analysis of information. In healthcare the goals include investment in capacity based upon knowledge of healthcare needs, evidence-based service planning and care delivery, capture of information and provision of knowledge at the point-of-care and evaluation of outcomes. The issue of knowledge management is explored from the perspectives of the user of information and from the discipline of Information Technology and its application to healthcare and public safety. Case studies are discussed to illustrate knowledge management and limiting or enabling factors. These factors include strategy, architecture, standards, feed-back loops, training, quality processes, and social factors such as expectations, ownership of systems and politics

Unemployment Among Young Adults: Exploring Employer-Led Solutions

Younger workers consistently experience higher unemployment and less job stability than older workers. Yet the dramatic deterioration in employment outcomes among younger workers during and since the Great Recession creates new urgency about developing more effective bridges into full-time employment for young people, especially those with less than a bachelor's degree. Improving the employment status of young adults and helping employers meet workforce needs are complementary goals. Designing strategies to achieve them requires insight into the supply and demand sides of the labor market: both the characteristics of young people and their typical routes into employment as well as the demand for entry-level orkers and the market forces that shape employer decisions about hiring and investing in skill development. A quantitative and qualitative inquiry focused on the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Ill. and Louisville, Ky