Tackling Youth Unemployment, One Tax Credit Job At A Time

While the press conference was delayed a bit, pending the arrival of Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, I had the opportunity to talk to the real stars of the hour: the youth.

About twenty young employees – interns, temps, full-time – of Tarrytown pharmaceutical company gathered in the lobby to represent the robust hiring practices of a company with a history of seeking out young people but happy to further their commitment and enjoy the tax benefits in the process.

The NY Youth Works initiative, launched in January and going through the year, offers $25 million in tax credits to companies that hire underprivileged youth from 12 select areas in the state, three of which are in Westchester. 

Ivan Tse, the spokesperson Monday for the youth benefiting from this program at Regeneron, commutes to the company daily from Manhattan's Lower East Side by train and then company shuttle. Even as an undergrad computer science major at a school like Cornell University, Tse said he faced a number of rejections in his hunt for summer employment. “The job search was fairly difficult,” he said.

Kevin Silverstein, of Nyack, is going to be a sophomore in college and grateful now to get his foot in the door of a company he'd be interested in hitting up again when he graduates. The job market these days, he said, “is definitely intimidating” and he feels “a lot of pressure.”

For now though, these students can enjoy the season in a non-buttoned-up work environment that prides itself on being pretty "hip" (in the words of Corporate Communications Director Peter Dworkin) and fun. Last week was their courtyard company bbq, and before that, you may have extracted DNA from  in the science booths at the .

The head of university relations for the company, Jessica Matthews, said though the company already “loves to give opportunities to everyone,” the extra incentive to do so is “very exciting.”

“The people we hire will definitely make a difference in the world someday,” Matthews said.

The tax benefits are nice, agreed Dworkin, but “we believe it's just the right thing to do.”

Officials from the NYS Labor Department, Regeneron CEO, Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, Stewart-Cousins, and other regional politicians spoke to raise awareness of the program that provides incentives for hiring of youth ages 16 to 24 from cities/towns in the state with particularly high youth unemployment rates. Full-time hires would garner the hiring company $4,000 tax credit annually, part-time $2,000. But while there are already 12,000 certified jobs listed with the program, there are only 7,000 youths signed up.

And not all the thousands of jobs available are so glamorous or stimulating. Officials were thrilled to have Regeneron on board and hoped the news would bring in other such companies with more to offer than just stand-on-your-feet-all-day retail and restaurant work, as pointed out Senator Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, representing the 36th District that includes Mt. Vernon.

• Statewide unemployment rate is: 8.6 percent overall, youth rate is 20.1 percent.
• Here in Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow, employment is 9.9 percent and youth 34.1 percent (we are not targeted for this program however).

Unemployment Rates in the three targeted cities/towns in Westchester:

• Yonkers – General rate of 8.7 percent, youth 15.4 percent 
• Mt. Vernon – 7.6, youth 26.2 percent
• New Rochelle – 9.2 percent, youth 44.7 percent (which NYS Dept. of Labor's Special Counsel Rachel D. Gold described as “absolutely obscene”)

Regeneron, between its R&D and administration division here and its manufacturing facility in Rensselear, has hired 97 interns this year, which, said PR man Dworkin makes it the “biggest number ever in the history of the program.” (After everyone had given their speeches, Stewart-Cousins returned to the podium to note that these internships, by the way, are rare in that they are well-paid.)

When the economy looks so “ominous,” said Stewart-Cousins, “to be able to say to our young people, we care about you, we support you... The [companies] get the tax credit, you get the real experience, and we are all better for it.”

Regeneron CEO, president and founder Dr. Leonard S. Schleifer said he wasn't as smooth a talker as these folks surrounding him, unless he could go on about “recoiling DNA." He likened the unemployment rates to the diseases his drugs try to remedy. The toll these economic times take on our youth in particular, he said, is a “scourge.”

“Just like diseases don't follow zip codes, neither does talent," Schliefer said. "Neither does opportunity." 

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