Providence mayor to millennials: Won’t you stay?

Nearly 100 people pack the outdoor patio of The Hot Club, a popular Providence waterfront bar, on a Wednesday evening.

It’s a common summer scene at happy hour across the city, except for the one thing that links The Hot Club patrons this night: their age.

“I think we’re all millennials,” said 24-year-old Travis J. Escobar, as he rocks up onto his toes to look over the many heads in front of him and more closely examine the group he’s largely responsible for gathering.

The crowd of young, educated professionals was brought together by the Millennial Professional Group of Rhode Island, headed by Escobar, and The Lady Project. The two nonprofits, dedicated to community engagement and advocacy, reserved the patio for discussion of a question first-term Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza, is particularly interested in: “Why you #ChooseRI?”

- Advertisement -

Why is a 38-year-old, Generation X mayor so interested in what Rhode Islanders born from 1980 to 2000 – commonly referred to as millennials – think?

Reports he’s seen suggest that young adults – especially those who obtain a college degree in Providence – are leaving.

“They leave the state and we lose them,” said Elorza, who has formed a task force to help retain and attract millennials. “So what can we do to have them stay?”

IN THE WORKFORCE

Getting more of them in the workforce would be a start.

The unemployment rate among 22-34-year-olds living in Providence grew from 8.5 percent in 2006 to 13.9 percent in 2010.

By 2013 the unemployment rate dropped slightly to 12.9 percent, but during that same period the number of 22-34-year-olds that exited the labor force grew 16.6 percent to 9,211, according to the R.I. Department of Labor and Training.

There are varying theories about why young people struggle to find work in Providence. Some jobs seekers say it’s a lack of jobs, while some employers say it’s a lack of workers.

“I think it’s very hard to find the talent we want these days,” said Alaina Restivo Golbder, head of talent at Swipely Inc.

Swipely is a major employer of educated millennials in Providence.

Of the nearly 100 people the electronic payment and data-mining enterprise employs, more than 85 percent of them are millennials and nearly 100 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according Restivo. The company outlier is Founder and CEO Angus Davis, who Restivo says is a Gen-Xer and is the only member of the Swipely team who did not graduate college.

But when it comes to recruiting and attracting new talent, Restivo says, Providence itself can be a tough sell.

“We lose people to Boston all the time. Many [millennials] find it more exciting and more convenient,” Restivo said.

Restivo, 32, says they’ve resorted to trying to target young professionals who’ve graduated from Rhode Island schools – but are now living elsewhere – as potential candidates to come back. The approach has been more effective, she said, than the “posting and hoping” strategy of announcing jobs online and anticipating it reaches the right person.

Despite some of the challenges she faces in the hiring process, however, Restivo has an upbeat outlook on where Providence is headed, saying a wider range of activities have popped up in the last few years that she thinks make the city more attractive to young people and could help prevent others from leaving.

Jack Templin, managing partner at Thoughtcap LLC, a Providence and New York-based software-consulting firm, agrees with Restivo. Templin has been active in the Providence startup and young professionals’ scene for more than a decade, and he says the city’s attempt to try and connect with millennials – especially those just finishing college – is a good strategy because the city has a lot of amenities that are popular among millennials, such as affordability, walkability, and a vibrant arts and culture scene.

But he thinks it’s going to take more than just the mayor’s office to bolster the city’s image with the generation.

“I think it’s going to take a lot of people to accomplish,” Templin said.

Nancy McMahon, vice president of human resources at Lifespan, Rhode Island’s largest private employer, says hiring new workers after the Great Recession was a challenge because the rate of turnover within Lifespan slowed along with the rate of retirement. Employees nearing the typical age of retirement were hesitant to exit the workforce in a time of such economic uncertainty.

That rate, she says, has begun to pick up again.

“We really value our older workers, but we need to keep the pipeline moving because they won’t be here forever,” McMahon said. “It’s good news that we have more opportunities to offer the millennial generation.”

McMahon doesn’t see a big need to recruit people from outside of Rhode Island to work at Lifespan, as there are many options locally with so many people looking to enter the health care industry. Of the 14,230 people employed at Lifespan as of July 30, 85.6 percent of them were Rhode Islanders and 2,246 of them lived in Providence, according to Lifespan data.

McMahon also oversees three programs that focus on millennials who are still in search of a defined career path.

“One of the nice things about health care is that you have the whole spectrum. You have medical doctors, surgeons and then you have people that deliver mail, so regardless of the millennials’ capability, we can find work for them,” she said.

ARE THEY LEAVING?

If graduating millennials are leaving the city, as Elorza fears, however, others are replacing them.

Indeed, from 2000 to 2013 the number of Providence residents aged 22-34 increased 12.3 percent to 42,158 people, according to an analysis done by the DLT. To compare, the city’s total population grew 2.4 percent during the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 22-34-year-old cohort in 2013 comprised 23.7 percent of the city’s overall population of 177,994, compared with 21.6 percent in 2000, an increase of nearly 10 percent.

So what is Elorza talking about when he says young people are leaving the city when in reality volume is increasing at a rate that greatly exceeds overall population growth?

He referenced an article published in The New York Times last October showing Providence in the bottom tier of U.S. metropolitan areas where the number of college graduates is growing.

The Times reported the number of college graduates aged 25-34 living in Providence growing 6 percent from 2000 to 2012, ranking it fourth from last before Atlanta (3 percent), Cleveland (1 percent) and Detroit (-10 percent).

So while the number of young adults continues to grow in Providence, they aren’t necessarily the recent college graduates who Elorza says are key to the long-term economic well-being of the city.

“They are our future business leaders, and by keeping that talent here, that in itself will create a lot of economic activity,” Elorza said.

Elorza’s economic point hits home on an issue felt around the country as millennials finish school, enter the U.S. workforce and become the largest working demographic.

Earlier this year millennials surpassed Generation X in becoming the largest group within the U.S. workforce, according to Washington, D.C., research group Pew Research Center.

Millennials surpassed baby boomers, those born from 1946 to 1964, in the workforce last year.

Despite the growing national figures, however, Providence has seen some recent stagnation in the number of young adults entering its labor force.

From 2000 to 2013, the number of people aged 22 to 34 in the Providence labor force grew 23.8 percent, totaling 32,947. But since 2010 Providence has netted only two more workers in its labor force, according to the DLT.

Helen Mederer, professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island, studies millennials and is currently designing a course looking at how the generation is developing in the institutions of work and family. She says any effort in attracting young people could benefit the city and state.

“Rhode Island tends to have an older-than-average population anyways, so it’s important to keep the age balance,” she said. “In general, Gen-X is getting older and the baby boomers are headed toward retirement. We cannot rely on just Gen-X, so we do need millennials.”

WHO ARE THEY?

Escobar is one of those Providence millennials.

Born and raised in the city, he is the first member of his family to finish high school, attend college and receive a degree. While growing up and studying at college he heard a phrase repeated often by his peers: “I can’t wait to get out of Rhode Island.”

But that sentiment never rang true with Escobar, he says.

“I love Rhode Island,” he said pointedly one morning while sitting with a reporter at White Electric Coffee shop on Westminster Street in Providence.

“I was born and raised here, and I believe we can unite the millennial generation,” he added.

A graduate of Rhode Island College, Escobar is one of a handful of Providence millennials leading the charge to retain local talent among his age group in Rhode Island. Earlier this year he launched MPGRI, asking millennials to choose Rhode Island as a place to live, work and grow.

Elorza in June tapped Escobar to join his Millennial Task Force, which is a byproduct of an idea that’s been growing for the last couple years.

Escobar first met Elorza in 2013 at the popular Bolivian-Peruvian Los Andes restaurant in Providence. Determined to put his name out there in the last semester of college, Escobar followed up with Elorza several times and eventually became one of his first campaign volunteers when Elorza announced his bid for mayor.

Escobar says Elorza’s interest in understanding the millennial generation is genuine and was constantly on his mind even during the early stages of the campaign.

“He would talk about the ‘brain drain’ very naturally, asking questions like, ‘Why don’t we figure out ways of keeping people here?’ ” Escobar said.

The so-called brain drain is based on the concept that highly trained or educated people emigrate from one geographic location to another and is at the very heart of the idea that educated millennials are leaving Providence, especially since the state was slow to bounce back from the economic crisis of 2008 and carried one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Providence’s Wole Akinbi, 26, is no stranger to financial pressures. He, like Escobar, grew up in the city. He attended and graduated from the Community College of Rhode Island in 2010 and was able to do so without taking on any debt.

But six months after he decided to continue his education at Rhode Island College, his mother lost her job and his family was evicted.

“In order to complete my degree, I took on extra money to live on campus,” Akinbi said.

Akinbi graduated with more than $35,000 in debt, which he’s now paying back with the money he earns as a project manager with the marketing and strategic planning company Half Full LLC in Providence.

Akinbi says he urges young adults to consider participating in certification programs through organizations, such as Year Up and The Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence, as an alternative to traditional higher education that comes with such a financial burden on the back end.

“In hindsight I would have stopped at CCRI,” Akinbi said. “I would have never gone to RIC because that’s where the headache came in.”

Escobar is also in debt nearly $30,000, a problem common to many recent college graduates, especially in Rhode Island. Ocean State graduates in 2013 left school with student debt averaging $31,561, which was fourth highest in the nation, according to a 2014 report released by The Institute for College Access and Success.

Wallethub.com on Aug. 4 ranked Rhode Island as the second-worst state in the country for student debt.

Sierra Barter, CEO and co-founder of The Lady Project, represents the type of millennial Elorza would like to attract more of to the city.

Originally from Wisconsin, Barter came to Providence to study at Johnson & Wales University and stayed in Rhode Island after graduating. She now works at her alma mater and runs The Lady Project, a nonprofit that connects and showcases women in Providence and other cities around the country.

“I loved living in Providence as an undergrad and was really excited to stay here after graduating,” Barter said. “I tell the college students I work with that Providence gets better every year. It’s a great place to be a young professional, grow your career and have a family.”

WHAT’S POSSIBLE?

Elorza’s hunt for more millennials will begin to take shape once his task force produces a report with recommendations sometime this year. His office has not done any exhaustive studies of the city’s millennial population or looked at the stakes should his effort fail to gain traction.

Boston, however, may offer a glimpse of how Elorza’s effort may unfold.

ONEin3 Boston is a city-run group that connects Boston’s young adults, aged 20-34, with resources related to housing, professional development, financial health, entrepreneurship and civic engagement.

Operating under the umbrella of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, ONEin3 was born during former-Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s administration in 2004.

“The program has experienced a lot of growth and increased traction over the course of its existence,” said Colin Smith, deputy communications director at the authority. “The fact that ONEin3 is a relatively well-known initiative that has spanned across two different administrations is itself a sign of the program’s success.”

Rory Cuddyer, ONEin3 interim director, says the city retains about 50 percent of its college graduates, which translates into roughly 40,000 new residents in Greater Boston each year.

Since the program’s inception, however, the city has never struggled with attracting or retaining young professionals. ONEin3, rather, started as a way to civically engage the demographic.

“It sounds like part of the process in Providence is trying to draw millennials to [the city]. We’ve always had the opposite problem,” said Smith. “We have this population that’s been here for a long time and ONEin3 is trying to get them involved.”

Today, ONEin3 estimates that its target demographic comprises 48 percent of the city’s overall workforce and adds $1 billion to the city’s gross domestic product annually. Its expenditures support 22,241 additional jobs.

Elorza says the ideal outcome in Providence would be to align the millennial workforce with the demands of the business world.

“Millennials think differently” than other age groups, Elorza said. “If we want to be responsive to their needs, we need to know who they are.” •

No posts to display

1 COMMENT