Title
Authorizing Council's Committee on Global Opportunities and Creative/Innovative Economy to hold hearings to investigate how to fully take advantage of global opportunities and the creative/innovative economy to spur economic development in Philadelphia by increasing overseas investments, incubating technology and innovation, encouraging creativity, and attracting and retaining the workforce to create good-paying, family-sustaining jobs with benefits and improve the quality of life for all residents of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, Working class job opportunities have significantly declined with outsourcing and the restructuring of the national economy from a manufacturing-based to a service-based-economy; and
WHEREAS, In 1960, there were 350,000 manufacturing jobs in Philadelphia and by 1990, they declined to 50,000; and
WHEREAS, Manufacturing once accounted for nearly half of all jobs in Philadelphia and has now declined to only about 5% as this industry transitioned to a more advanced form of production; and
WHEREAS, Jobs in the New Economy require a new set of skills to be developed to be competitive in the job market; and
WHEREAS, The growth of low-skill service jobs and a stagnation of opportunities for good-paying, family-sustaining jobs with benefits, especially for workers without a college degree, leads to an urgent call to expand quality job opportunities in Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, There is a need to ascertain Philadelphia's emerging role in the 21st Century's regional and global, creative/innovative economy; and
WHEREAS, There is an opportunity to create new jobs for Philadelphians by attracting overseas employers to locate in Philadelphia and hire residents of the City; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia's businesses can grow and prosper by increasing their share of overseas markets and by expanding their domestic markets by increasing international tourists, students, and visitors; and
WHEREAS, Overseas investm...
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