The holidays are a time for people to travel home to be with family. A community group that works to promote Syracuse to young adults is hoping to take advantage of that.
The organization 40 Below figures most people in their 20s and 30s who are home for the holidays will be going out for drinks this weekend anyway. They want to use that to convince people to move back to central New York.
40 Below is hosting a “Come Home to Syracuse” networking cocktail hour Friday evening at the Armory Square bar Benjamin’s. They’re bringing in employers that are hiring to mingle.
"What Syracuse has to offer, but it’s kind of hard to get people to see it unless you bring them all together in one cohesive manner," said Mayadeh Sousou, with 40 Below. "And that’s a little piece of what we’re trying to do Friday night."
Sousou is on 40 Below’s career task force and she works for a recruiter for an employment agency. She says despite negative stereotypes, there are jobs in Syracuse.
"Anyone who has the notion that Syracuse doesn’t have the jobs and that’s why they left, which maybe would have been a good perspective back in 2008 or 2009, can come back and network with employers and realize there are jobs," she said.
Syracuse has struggled in the past year to generate positive employment figures compared to other upstate cities and the urban areas like New York City that draw so many young people after college.
Sousou says Syracuse has things to offer that bigger cities don’t, like affordability and new downtown housing. The proximity to family are a selling point too, she said.
