City Says Some Business are Beating Layoffs

By
Arun Venugopal
WNYC News | Jul 12, 2010

New York, NY —

Layoffs may make the headlines but the city wants you to know that some businesses are actually thriving, due to the NYC Business Solutions Training Program. the program has retrained more than 1900 workers in the last year alone in order to make small businesses more competitive.

REPORTER: Roy Rucci is the co-owner of Rucci Oil, an 80 year old business on Staten Island that turned to the program last year, as it planned to let go of workers.

RUCCI: Without the program, we were looking to downsize our company. We were going to have to, come this spring and summer, do several layoffs to our employees. Now with the city's assistance we're able to expand our company and continue to grow.

REPORTER: Rucci Oil paid for about one-third of the re-training, with the city footing the remaining 22 thousand dollars. Mayor Bloomberg, who was also at the announcement, said the program has helped the city diversify beyond Wall Street.

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Arun Venugopal

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