Share This Article
“Every major climate investment should consider the workers and skills required, the employers expected to hire, and the pathways needed to connect New Yorkers to the work.”
New York City’s affordability and climate crises are often treated as wholly separate problems. At the New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCETC), we see that these challenges are deeply connected for working New Yorkers.
The communities most exposed to extreme heat, flooding, poor air quality, and aging infrastructure are often the same communities where residents face low wages and limited access to stable careers. That reflects decades of decisions about where New York invests, which industries it supports, and who benefits when the city grows.
Investments in the green economy give New York an opportunity to change that pattern.
New York is on track to spend billions of dollars to increase building efficiency, modernize infrastructure, strengthen neighborhoods against extreme weather, and reduce emissions. Whether that spending also changes the economic reality for working New Yorkers will depend on the city’s approach to hiring, contracting, training, and advancement. Public investment on this scale should be judged not only by the projects it completes but by the economic opportunity it creates.
The city’s Green Economy Action Plan identifies 21 occupations central to that growth, from plumbers to facilities managers to engineers, many of which do not require a college degree. These are not simply new environmental jobs. They are occupations that already build, operate, and maintain our city. New York must help current workers gain new skills, bring more people into careers with room for advancement, and give employers access to the talent they need.
Affordability cannot be addressed through lower costs alone. New Yorkers also need higher incomes and better opportunities for advancement. More efficient buildings and infrastructure can lower household costs, while careers in construction, building operations, energy, transportation, and climate resilience can raise wages and expand economic mobility.
Those outcomes will not happen automatically. Workforce development is too often treated as something that begins after priorities have been set, contracts awarded, and projects designed. Training providers are then expected to prepare workers for opportunities they had little role in shaping, sometimes without clear information about employer demand, hiring requirements, or project timelines.
A system that separates project planning from workforce planning will struggle to deliver either climate progress or economic justice.
Workforce organizations, employers, labor, schools, CUNY, and community partners must be involved from the beginning. Every major climate investment should consider the workers and skills required, the employers expected to hire, and the pathways needed to connect New Yorkers to the work.
NYCETC’s “An Affordable Climate Economy” offers a framework for doing that. The city should treat workforce development as economic infrastructure, just as essential to implementation as financing, procurement, and project management.
That means aligning workforce programs with employer demand and strengthening coordination between government and workforce organizations. Employers should help define needed skills, validate training, provide paid experience, and hire from the pathways they help develop. Apprenticeships and other earn-and-learn models can allow New Yorkers to earn an income while preparing for lasting careers.
Green Economy Career Navigators can connect New Yorkers to growing occupations, credible training, required credentials, and opportunities for advancement. They can also help employers, particularly small businesses, find workforce programs and qualified candidates.
The city must partner with community-based workforce organizations that understand local barriers and have built trust in communities that public systems often struggle to reach. These organizations should help shape workforce strategies before project and hiring plans are finalized, not simply recruit workers after decisions are made.
City government must also lead by example. Public agencies employ workers in many climate-critical occupations. Through career exposure, paid work experience, clearer civil-service pathways, and greater hiring transparency, the city can model the workforce practices it is asking private employers to adopt.
Finally, New York must measure more than enrollment and training completion. It should publish information about hiring, wages, retention, advancement, employer participation, and progress in filling priority occupations. Those results should show whether climate investments are producing economic mobility and whether communities historically excluded from growth are sharing in the opportunity.
Climate progress cannot be separated from the people expected to deliver it. Buildings will not retrofit themselves. Infrastructure will not become resilient on its own. New Yorkers will do that work.
New York’s green transition will be judged by the infrastructure it improves and the emissions it reduces. It should also be judged by the economy it leaves behind.
The talent and institutional capacity already exist. The task now is to connect climate investment, employer demand, training, hiring, and accountability.
Done right, the green economy can help businesses grow, raise wages, and allow more New Yorkers to build lasting careers. If workforce development remains an afterthought, the city may meet its climate targets while missing the larger opportunity to deliver economic justice.
Gregory J. Morris is CEO of the New York City Employment and Training Coalition.