In the last year, more than 17,000 people have walked into an old Art Deco office building in the center of Philadelphia, just down the street from City Hall, looking for help finding work.
Inside on the second floor is one of four publicly funded job centers in the city. In the mornings, there’s often a line at the check-in desk.
Dawn Thomas-Hayward, the communications director at Philadelphia Works, the city’s nonprofit workforce development board, said people come here for all sorts of reasons, “to see their workforce adviser, to go use the computer resource center, do job search, get resume help, get into trainings.”
This is one of four such centers around the city. All are open to walk-ins from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., five days a week.
James Anderson first walked in five or six years ago, soon after he got out of prison in his mid-50s.
“I was incarcerated, tired of that circle, in and out,” he said. “And I thought, ‘Maybe I'll just start looking into some of the resources that's available and see where it can lead me.’”
He told his adviser at the time that he was interested in vocational training, and they got him into a program to get his commercial driver’s license.
“They funded everything, like really helped me get that opportunity to get into a new future,” he said.
But without much on-the-job experience, Anderson has found it hard to land steady, full-time work at a good company. He’s only working one day a week, and not as a driver. That’s why he’s back at CareerLink, hoping they can help him find something again.
“It's been challenging trying to get a job where you could say, ‘Whew, thank you, God,’ you know what I mean. ‘I’m good now, ain’t got to stress,’” he said. “That kind of work, it's been challenging for me.”
It’s challenging for a lot of people to find work right now. Elizabeth Giddings sees that every day in her job as a CareerLink workforce adviser, where she works one-on-one with people to help them find a job or get into an apprenticeship or training program.
“When I do an orientation for the individuals to get a workforce adviser, the room is packed,” Giddings said. “So I know the economy is pretty bad.”
And those one-on-one appointments people can make with her or another adviser are booked until June.
“A lot of people are just becoming laid off,” Giddings said. “And I see individuals that come in that have been laid off since last year, the early part of the spring, and they still have not obtained employment.”
Philadelphia’s unemployment rate has risen from 4.5% in December to 5.3% in January, the most recent month for which city data is available. That is a whole percentage point higher than the state and national average. By contrast, the unemployment rate in Pittsburgh — Pennsylvania’s second largest city — is 4.1%, lower than the state and national average.
“One of the challenges we face as a city is our adult literacy rate,” said Patrick Clancy, president and CEO of Philadelphia Works. “We are severely challenged, with some of our adults unable to pass a sixth- or eighth-grade reading and math test.”
