Chicago Tribune Editorial: “Wanted: Workforce for ‘The City That Makes Things'”

An employee performs quality control inspections of the liquid soaps that are produced and bottled at the Method Soap factory at 750 E. 111th in Chicago on March 25, 2015. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

A Chicago Tribune Board’s editorial on the need for manufacturing jobs in the Chicago region cites findings from a recent report from the Century Foundation and the UIC Great Cities Institute that examines the area’s manufacturing sector and the opportunity for businesses to employ members of the city’s black and Latino communities.

A stubborn stereotype of Chicago is that it doesn’t make things anymore. It does. Among economic sectors, manufacturing remains one of the Chicago region’s biggest employers, with a workforce of more than 363,000 in 2017. Between April 2017 and March 2018, manufacturing yielded more than 58,000 job postings, according to a new study by the Century Foundation and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute. That outpaced more than a dozen other sectors, including retail, transportation/warehousing and education.

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Will the nightmare that these children at the border face truly end?

Source: Getty Images

Dr. Stevan Weine, director of the UIC Center for Global Health, a partner of GCI, co-authored an opinion piece about the separation of children from migrant families at the Mexican border that appeared in The Hill. Weine and co-author Dr. Barry Sarvet, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate, outline several long-term psychological consequences of separation on children in the article.

While the abominable policy of separating young children from their parents and placing them in inhumane institutional conditions has for now been discontinued, a reported 2,300 children, including infants and toddlers, were forcibly separated from their parents.

They are confined in mass detention facilities with no clear plans for being returned to their families. The chaotic environment of a detention facility, developed in haste seemingly without humane conditions, adequately trained staff and appropriate programming, is a dangerous place for children. It’s a set-up for injury, neglect, and further traumatization on top of the hardship of their migrant journey and the unimaginable pain of being torn away from their parents.

All of these children have been put in cruel circumstances which can forever impact them, emotionally, developmentally, and medically. For the rest of their lives, these children may experience sudden episodes of emotional dysregulation triggered by experiences and sensations that remind them of their original traumatic experience.

Full Story from The Hill »

Inclusion and Industry 4.0 Summit

Hear remarks from Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, other major regional leaders, and new research presented by The Century Foundation and the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) that examines the untapped potential of skills training programs and strong manufacturing jobs to expand economic opportunities for diverse communities.

Industry 4.0 envisions a fourth industrial revolution that harnesses the power of technology and aims to place diverse communities at the heart of this transformation.

To register, please click here.

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Here’s who can fill Chicago’s manufacturing needs

Photo by Crain’s file photo

Teresa Córdova, director of the Great Cities Institute at UIC, co-authored a Crain’s Chicago Business op-ed on the Chicago area’s manufacturing sector, its stabilization in recent years and the potential for future growth by creating pathways for unemployed Black and Latino young people. Cordova and Matt Wilson, an economic development planner at the institute, are two of three authors of The Century Foundation’s related report, “Revitalizing Manufacturing and Expanding Opportunities for Chicago’s Black and Latino Communities.”

Across the Chicago region, manufacturers are feeling better than they have in years. Orders are increasing, employment is growing and there’s an increasing recognition that the quality provided by local precision manufacturers is a better deal than offshoring production. But there’s one big hangup: Companies don’t have the workers they need to complete manufacturing’s renaissance.

A new report we co-authored, to be released this week, finds that nearly 1 in 3 workers in manufacturing in the metro area is over age 55. Although many companies have retained older, skilled workers, many more positions remain unfilled. Over the past year, there were 58,000 open manufacturing jobs, behind only health care, finance and professional services in need. In 2017, manufacturers posted two jobs for every person they hired.

Full Story from Crain’s Chicago Business »

Revitalizing Manufacturing and Expanding Opportunities for Chicago’s Black and Latino Communities

Executive Summary:

This report investigates a region—the Chicago metropolitan area and surrounding communities—where manufacturing was once the largest sector of the economy. The processes of economic restructuring that began in the late 1970s resulted in deindustrialization that left behind massive numbers of jobless residents and disinvested neighborhoods that continue to display the legacy of decline. In the aftermath, populations that once had a high concentration of their workforce in manufacturing have found themselves in a changing economy where most occupations are becoming increasingly technical and require high levels of education or training.

But after its long period of job loss across the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the manufacturing sector has in recent years shown stability and potential for growth and reemergence. With that growth and potential in mind, this report explores manufacturing’s significance in the Chicago region and the sector’s potential to meet the needs of the jobless, in particular jobless black and Latino young people who have not received any post-high school education. Underpinning this analysis is the belief that Chicago’s disinvested communities deserve access to quality jobs with good wages, and that the manufacturing sector, through inclusion, has the potential to provide avenues to promote those goals.

This report is in partnership with the Great Cities Institute and The Century Foundation’s Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative.

Authors:

Teresa L. Córdova, Ph.D.,

Matthew D. Wilson,

Andrew Stettner,
The Century Foundation.

Read the Full Report Here.

 

Illinois Budgeting For Results Public Hearings


On June 20th and 27th Great Cities Institute Senior Researcher Jim Lewis will be chairing the annual public hearings of the State of Illinois Budgeting for Results Commission. Lewis and Senator Heather Steans were appointed co-chairs of the Commission  by Governor Rauner.  Created seven years ago by statute to oversee the progress of budget reform and accountability under the new Budgeting For Results (BFR) law, the Commission is overseeing the implementation of cost/benefit analysis across all state departments.  The Budgeting for Results statute requires Illinois to move toward a budget process that begins with consensus on the next year’s revenue total, and then requires the state to prioritize its programming based on effectiveness of each program. Under Lewis’ leadership, the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget has begun implementing the “Results First” cost/benefit model, pioneered by Washington State and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

While the rigorous application of data analysis to state budget-making remains aspirational, BFR data has begun making its way into legislative committee deliberations and each state department now has a Chief Results Officer, so progress is being made. The June 21st hearing in Springfield will focus on evaluating criminal justice programming and the June 27th hearing in Chicago on how to assess health care programs. Hearings are public meetings and the Commission welcomes public comment.

The June 20th Springfield hearing will be held at the University of Illinois at Springfield, PAC Room C/D or by live stream from 1:30pm to 3:30pm.

The June 27th Chicago hearing will be held at JRTC, Suite 9-040, 100 West Randolph or by live stream from 1:30pm to 3:30pm.

Chicago is the 13th most segregated metro area in U.S., study finds

Source: Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune

GCI Senior Researcher James Lewis is quoted in a Chicago Tribune article that discusses a new study showing a gradual decline in housing segregation in the Chicago area. Lewis explains that the study raises several questions regarding the cause of the shift and whether the data accurately depicts a trend toward housing integration.

One question that the study did not answer, said Lewis, is whether decreases in segregation are fueled by economic reasons “or for personal inclination.” Another question, he said, is whether currently observed integration is the result of migration processes. A segregation index is, by definition, a snapshot in time, and a community that, at one moment, is integrated actually may be in the process of undergoing a dramatic demographic shift.

“My assessment of the social environment is that it’s a very, very long, slow process, but that it is very, very gradually getting better,” he said.

Full Story from the Chicago Tribune »