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Community and commissioners press CPMC on local hiring, apprenticeships and retention data
Summary
OEWD and CPMC reported some outcomes met (high operational hires, LBE contracting share), but multiple speakers and commissioners flagged steep declines in entry-level operations hires and sought retention and neighborhood-target details; OEWD provided retention counts that commissioners asked staff to explain further.
Local workforce development officials and community advocates pressed CPMC and city staff for more than summary numbers, saying aggregate compliance figures mask key gaps in hiring and retention for San Franciscans.
Ken Nim, who manages the compliance program at the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, told commissioners the project exceeded several operational hiring goals: "So the project has exceeded the goals," he said when describing nonunion entry-level administrative hires and internship conversions. He also reported the project generated more than $225,000,000 in revenue for local businesses through July 2018 and LBE participation across projects averaged roughly 16.4%.
At the same time, Nim and other staff acknowledged construction-apprentice targets lagged: the 50% goal for entry-level union apprentices was reached at roughly 30%, and the broader target of 30% of journeyman/apprentice hours being performed by San Francisco residents stood at 25% (about 1,200,000 out of an estimated 5,000,000+ hours), figures staff attributed to regionwide construction demand.
Commissioners and community groups focused particular scrutiny on operations hiring and retention. The coalition and multiple speakers pointed out that projected entry-level operations hires dropped sharply (for example, from 220 in earlier projections to roughly 57'65 reported in materials). Commissioners asked for retention data; Lowell Price from OEWD said the office had provided retention figures this spring and summarized them for the hearing: "There were 277 hires over the 5 year period. And 128 of those hires were terminated. And 73 of those 128 were retained for 180 days." He described 180 days as a common workforce benchmark for retention.
Why it matters: the DA ties local-hire and contracting commitments to community benefits. Commissioners said raw hires and percentages are insufficient without neighborhood targets, occupation-level detail and retention outcomes to understand who actually gains stable employment.
What staff will do next: commissioners asked staff to return with neighborhood-level breakdowns, the occupations filled, retention analysis, and a deeper explanation for the year-over-year decline in some entry-level hiring categories.
