In the first event of the second day of the Boston Globe Summit 2024, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu joined Globe work and income inequality reporter Katie Johnston in a discussion about skill-based employment and education.

The panel conversation opened with a speech from Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, the chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston, who talked about the innovations and development needs for Boston. 

“We are in the cognitive age, and if Boston is to remain the cognitive capital of our country, all sectors in our extraordinary city will be in common together,” Suárez-Orozco said.

“The crises we’re facing-the crisis in democracy, the crisis in climate, the crisis in health, the crisis in inequality-are crises that require cities to just re-engineer their algorithms to make sure the citizens can thrive,” Suárez-Orozco told The Beacon in an interview. 

He added preparing people to address these challenges through education is crucial as Boston has a growing population of children and immigrant families that will define its future.

“Immigrant families of color [are] the only sector of our state’s population that is growing,” he said in his opening remarks. “At a time with so much migration [to] the state, we need to redo our efforts to nurture the capital and the[se] families.”

After Suárez-Orozco’s introduction, Wu and Johnston discussed the history and future of the job market in Boston and the measures Wu’s administration has taken to try and innovate in that space.

Wu said that when she took the office of mayor in 2021, the city was in a period of transition. Many collective bargaining agreements for city workers had recently expired and as the city exited the pandemic, Wu saw an opportunity to build the city’s workforce in a new way. She said the hope was to build an infrastructure that empowers less represented communities and fills out vacant industries to respond to the city’s housing crisis and increasing cost of living.

“We had a lot of hiring to do and had to rethink it in order to compete among all the different industries,” Wu said. “And to manage that, the very first change was to think about how we support our workforce.”

Wu’s administration has worked to break down many traditional barriers to gaining employment in the city, including removing degree requirements for some jobs and implementing extensive on-the-job training that helps candidates get the qualifications they need to work rather than searching for those who are already qualified.

These measures are done through the People’s Operation Cabinet, the Worker Empowerment Cabinet, and research collaboration with UMass Boston, to help shift the city’s internal job practices away “from a pure HR mentality … over to a mindset of, ‘How do we support professional development?’ [and] empower our workforce to see this as a career ladder … not just one role,” Wu said.

Rashad O. Cope, the deputy chief of the Worker Empowerment Cabinet said the cabinet had worked specifically with trying to provide residents with access to jobs in the life science industry with companies like MassBio and the Boston Water and Sewer Commission.

“We have seen huge interest in some strong relationships with employers,” Cope told The Beacon. “It’s really just ecosystem building, that is the focus right now.”

Wu and Johnston shifted their talk to discuss how to provide residents better access to jobs while continuing to pull in economic expansion from the city’s tech industry that brings specialized professionals from around the country to live and work in Boston.

“Boosting the number of jobs in any community is a win-win. It’s a win for generational wealth and creating opportunity for our residents and it’s a win for companies that have the growth capacity of being tapped into talent,” Wu said. “The only wrinkle in that is if you end up not being able to have the infrastructure to support a growing population base, and so we are working very hard at the same time as recruiting everyone to come to make sure that people not only want to be here because they have the jobs, but can afford to be here.”

As part of its “in-house hiring pipeline,” the city has organized hiring days, a “one-stop shop for community members to be able to directly step into these jobs,” in on-the-spot interviews for entry-level positions, Wu said. 

“[Hiring is the] most effective when people know that there’s an immediate opportunity, that showing up means they could go home with a job that day,” Wu said. “This is about coming and just talking about who you are, what you’ve done, and being able to share your own experience, and because many of these then will come with on-the-job hiring, we hope that they’re as accessible as possible.

Wu finished her discussion by discussing how the city has joined with community partners in hiring to try and increase the diversity of Boston’s workforce.

“There’s obviously a lot of work to do in making sure that our entire workforce is reflective of our entire community, but we’ve made significant strides,” Wu said.

Suárez-Orozco then returned to the podium to deliver closing remarks on the value of Boston as a place where this innovation is possible.

Suárez-Orozco talked to The Beacon about Boston’s unique opportunity to try and address many of the issues related to climate and health as a major city on the cutting edge of science, technology, and art, but one that is small and decentralized to have widespread collaboration.

“There’s only one Boston,” Suárez-Orozco said. “We’re small enough where the connectivity and the synergies can be deployed in much more agile ways.”

Specifically for college students, Wu said that as someone who came to the city for college and stayed after graduation, there are a couple of pieces that the city needs to work on to ensure that college students can afford to enter the workforce in the city.

“The key is that we don’t want graduation to be the first time that we’re interacting with college students, “ Wu said in an interview with The Beacon. “You have to have job opportunities that are here and that are connected to recent grads. You have to have housing that people then can afford to find to stay. And you have to be a city where people want to stay, where it’s fun and welcoming and inclusive as well.”

Overall Wu’s focus is on balancing opportunity and access for everyone living in the city.

“I think our goal every day is to make Boston a home for everyone,” Wu said. “Whether you’re six generations deep in the city, or you’re new to Massachusetts or new to this country … the hope is that we are going to be able to provide as many ways for people to feel connected and see themselves reflected in the city.”