The "green jobs" movement in the Hudson Valley is young, but real,
and will grow in coming years, speakers at a conference said Friday.
To
help that growth, a focus is needed on improving educational systems to
help emerging industries. Also, solutions are needed to unlock
financing that green businesses, which are mostly small, require to
grow.
About 150
people attended the Green 2010 conference held at the Cary Institute
for Ecosystems Studies. It was the fifth annual event, but this one
came during a major recession that has made jobs scarce and left
financing hard to find.
On
the broader jobs front, there was one piece of good news from Frank
Surdey, principal economist at the state Department of Labor.
Total
job openings posted in the state system by employers grew this November
versus one year earlier, he said. In the Hudson Valley region, job
requests numbered 5,500, up 31 percent in a year. Statewide, employers
posted 57,300, a gain of 25 percent in a year, he said.
Those
job openings may be 10 percent to 20 percent of the total that actually
exist but the data serves as a good indicator of the overall labor
market, he said.
Those aren't all green jobs, but some are, he said. The state is exploring ways to measure green jobs, Surdey said.
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