NYC Arts in Education Roundtable Testifies in Support of More Workforce Development for Arts Sector

NEW YORK, NY (01/27/2025) (readMedia)-- Today, Kim Olsen, the Executive Director of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, testified in front of the New York City Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations in support of more workforce development programs in New York.

See below for her testimony:

Testimonial Letter to the New York City Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations

Hon. Carlina Rivera, Chair

Hearing: Oversight - Pathways into the Arts and Cultural Workforce for New Yorkers

January 27, 2025

Thank you to Chair Rivera and the City Council for your support of cultural workforce development in New York City. My name is Kim Olsen, and I am the Executive Director of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable. We are an arts education service organization working to improve and advance arts education in NYC through professional development, advocacy, regranting, and community-building.

I'm writing as part of the It Starts with the Arts coalition to testify on the importance of workforce development opportunities in the arts and culture sector.

According to the Comptroller's most recent Creative Economy Dashboard (2022), together NYC's Creative industries employed an estimated 274,000 people in 2022-up 3.4% from (265,000 in) 2017, and modestly exceeding the 2.2% increase in total employment in the city. A staggering 12.3% of our country's creative workforce jobs are based here in NYC alone. That's a lot of creative workers and creative jobs - that ultimately enable the creative sector to account for 13% of the city's total economic output.

At the Roundtable, we consider workforce development through the lens of continuing professionalization from recruitment and training into entry-level positions through leadership development opportunities. We don't want to just prepare folx to enter the workforce, we want to support their development and training into more senior level positions so that they can continue to work and grow in the sector.

For us, that takes the shape of working with CUNY Cultural Corps to provide professional development to their cohort in addition to hosting an intern. As a service organization, we work with hundreds of organizations and thousands of arts workers each year, providing professional development opportunities to support growth at all points of the workforce. These opportunities, including our NYS Teaching Artist Mentorship Program, offer skills- and network-building as vehicles for career advancement and sustainability. We also host an annual Arts and Cultural Jobs Fair each May, featuring 40-50 hiring organizations - helping connect jobseekers with opportunities in the field.

When talking about arts and workforce development, I would be remiss if I did not also mention how critical arts education opportunities are to preparing our city's workforce of tomorrow. Research shows arts education programs prepare students for the 21st century workforce, by developing the skills necessary to acquire and retain a job. Such key competencies developed through arts education including: problem solving, attention to nuance, adaptability, empathy, visualization of goals and outcomes, decision-making, and more.

In addition to supporting general workforce competencies, arts competencies in themselves can be highly marketable skills in today's economy. It's for all of these reasons that we recommend arts education be present at all NYC schools and that our city works to facilitate more intentional interaction between education, economic development, and arts policy leaders.

Workforce development programs are critical to providing hands-on experience, fostering professional networks, and bridging the gap between education and employment. Meaningful workforce development programs today, means a strong cultural workforce tomorrow.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Kimberly Olsen

Executive Director

NYC Arts in Education Roundtable

Email: kolsen@nycaieroundtable.org