Gov. Andrew Cuomo handed out more than $700 million in Regional Economic Development Council awards in Albany on Thursday.
The governor has held an annual contest to make regions of the state compete to win millions of dollars in economic development funds. They are judged by the strength of their plans.
The awards ranged from over $80 million for the Rochester-Finger Lakes Region, Capital Region, Mohawk Valley, New York City and the Mid-Hudson Valley to over $60 million each for Western New York, the Southern Tier, Central New York, the North Country and Long Island.
Cuomo said there are signs that the program, started in 2011, is working.
“Unemployment has dropped all across the state of New York,” Cuomo said, with the current unemployment rate now around 5 percent.
Cuomo said there are plenty of employment challenges ahead, though. He said manufacturing jobs have not been lost to immigrants or trade deals with foreign countries. He said the biggest change is that much more factory work has been automated, and overseen by fewer, but more highly skilled workers.
Cuomo said New York has the potential, through its university system, to train new manufacturing workers.
