Creating Jobs In the Heart of the Food Deserts of Baltimore

Vacant Baltimore Housing

Future home of Baltimore’s next urban farm?

The other day, someone asked us how we would bring employers to Baltimore. It’s a good question that we’ve decided to answer in print.

Here, in no particular order, are some simple strategies that we think the state and/or city should be supporting. If you’re interested, you can buy us lunch at a cheap diner and we can talk about it in detail over some home-made cherry pie for dessert. (Can you tell that our principal writer is dieting and can’t stop thinking about food?)

Continue reading

Resisting Temptation

Our belated congratulations to Catherine Pugh for having been elected Mayor of Baltimore. Well done.

Mayor-elect Pugh is, hands down, the most capable person to be elected by the city in decades. The only problem is, she may be too capable and may, soon enough, find herself mired in the quicksand that is the city government she’s taking over. It’s an ineffective, albeit usually well-meaning, but often dysfunctional mess.

Continue reading

A Suggestion For Soon-To-Be Mayor-Elect Pugh

Catherine PughBaltimore has thousands of unemployed and under-employed, unskilled and low-skilled workers. These people need jobs, the sooner the better.  It’s an urgent problem of the highest order.

As it turns out, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there are 48,000 openings for truck drivers across the country.  Quite probably, many hundreds of these jobs are in the greater Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. The pay is good, at a median hourly rate of $20/hour plus benefits, and many employers will pay for training.

Continue reading

JOB$ Creative Financing…

…It’s the big reason why you should talk to Baltimore Rising about getting the money you need to grow your business.

By “your business,” we’re talking about the one you want to locate in Baltimore’s neighborhoods that are what we like to call “Opportunity’s New Frontier.” Click here to see a printable list of the neighborhoods we’re talking about.

Continue reading

JOB$ – The Employer Funding Service from Baltimore Rising

Hey.  We have an exciting program to tell you about.  Just click on the link below to see the flier.  And then, if you’re interested – and you will be – come back to fill out our form.

Thanks.  Don’t hesitate to call or email us if you have any questions.  And please, if you’re not personally interested, help us spread the word.

Continue reading

Workforce development is no “Field of Dreams.”

In the market for labor, “Workforce Development” is a supply-side concept. Labor is the product. Employers are the buyers. Without enough employers, there aren’t going to be enough jobs, however well-trained the workforce may be.

In Baltimore, the idea is that tens of thousands of unskilled and low-skilled unemployed and under-employed workers will spend months, or longer, training for work, acquiring knowledge and skills for certain job descriptions, but not for specific jobs with specific employers. And therein lies the problem. You go through whatever program you think makes sense and one day you graduate. Now what?

Continue reading

Cars-For-Jobs

Jobs and the cars you need to get to them.

If you live in the city of Baltimore, you may have noticed that getting to work can be a very time-consuming, somewhat uncertain process. Commuting by bus can take a while, particularly if you have change lines, and reliability can also be problem. The Governor says he has a plan to make your life better. We’ll see how that works out.

Continue reading