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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR- 223-10
May 23, 2010

MAYOR BLOOMBERG DISCUSSES THE CITY’S IMPROVED JOB GROWTH AND NEW STEPS CITY GOVERNMENT IS TAKING TO SUPPORT BUSINESSES AND IMPROVE EDUCATION TO CONTINUE JOB GROWTH IN WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS

The following is the text of Mayor Bloomberg’s weekly radio address as prepared for delivery on 1010 WINS News Radio for Sunday, May 23, 2010

“Good Morning.  This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

“The biggest jump from one month to the next in New Yorkers holding jobs in more than 34 years: That’s the very heartening employment report about the month of April. We certainly haven’t climbed out of the deep economic hole produced by the national recession – not by a long shot. Far too many of our neighbors are still struggling to find work. However, it’s undeniably good news that 22,500 more New Yorkers had jobs in April than in March, and that the unemployment rate in our city continues to drift lower. 

“These encouraging jobs numbers reflect the hard work we’ve done to support small business and diversify the economy. In direct line with that, on Thursday we unveiled our latest effort to grow what’s emerging as a major economic force in our city: The commercial bioscience that turns biology lab research into medical and industrial products.

“Our world-class concentration of research centers makes commercial bioscience a natural in New York City. In fact, some 20 new bioscience firms spin out of our universities and medical centers every year. Until now, however, many of them have had a hard time finding the lab and office space in our city that they need. But these are exactly the kinds of firms we want in New York. So in partnership with the State University of New York, we’re now turning a long under-used warehouse at Sunset Park’s Brooklyn Army Terminal into a major commercial bioscience center. When it’s built out, this $60 million City-State investment will produce more than 1,000 new full-time, good-paying jobs. Along with the even larger East River Science Park in Manhattan – which will see its first tenants move in this fall – it’s going to help establish New York City as a national bioscience leader.

“Of course, education is crucial to landing lab tech jobs in bioscience, and jobs in other growing industries, too – a big reason we’ve made improving our schools such a priority. Last week, we got more evidence that, overall, our work is paying off.  Reading scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress test, administered to 4th and 8th graders in public schools across the U.S., showed that our students continue to close the gap with students in the rest of the state and nation. While we haven’t yet seen the progress we’d like in the 8th grade, we were one of only four big cities where 4th graders made significant progress since the last test was given, in 2007.  

“Clearly there’s still lots more work to do in our schools. That’s why we strongly support a proposed Federal law to provide $23 billion to prevent the teacher layoffs that could well take place here and across the nation next school year. It’s why we continue to urge State leaders to avoid deep education budget cuts, and also to raise the cap on the charter schools that have helped so many students in our city excel academically. Lifting the cap would also make us more competitive for up to $700 million in Federal ‘Race to the Top’ education funds. Because make no mistake about it, we are in a race – an economic race – with other cities and nations. And as good as last week’s jobs news was, we’ve got much more to do to make sure New York City always comes out on top.         

“This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg.  Thanks for listening.”







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