JOBS UP: The Department of Labor said the private sector grew by 47,000 new jobs in January — bringing the state above pre-pandemic levels for the first time. Hochul said the new numbers get the state’s private-sector job count to more than 8.3 million — the highest level on record. “New York is back, and with our historic recovery and record-breaking 8.3 million jobs, my administration is moving full-steam ahead to keep creating good-paying jobs that help New Yorkers build a future here in our state,” Hochul said in a statement. Overall, the state has recovered 1.9 million jobs since the height of the pandemic in April 2020 when the state reached a 30-year low of just 6.4 million jobs. The increase comes after a slight decrease in jobs in December. The new figures, which were seasonally adjusted, also found that the state’s unemployment rate decreased from 4.3 in 2022 to 4.2 in 2023. New York outpaced the rest of the nation in job growth by 0.4 percent. — Shawn Ness TWU VS BARNARD: The Transport Workers Union of America today sent a letter to Barnard President Laura Rosenbury slamming an administrator at the college for allegedly suggesting two union security officers should instruct students to remove their hijabs when going through security checks on campus. In November, an assistant director of community service allegedly told two officers “If a student could remove her hijab to take her ID photo, why couldn't she do the same when showing her ID at the main gates?” according to the letter. The administrator then allegedly told one of the officers he could ask students to remove their hijabs if he wanted. “Her comments demonstrate either a startling insensitivity to Islamic religious beliefs and traditions, complete ignorance, or an indefensible bias against followers of the Islamic faith,” the letter said. The officers notified the college’s management, which then referred the case to the school’s Title IX office, which has not interviewed either officer, according to the letter. “Barnard’s lack of action is not acceptable, especially since it is an institution portraying itself as a citadel of enlightened thinking,” the letter said. Barnard College said in a statement to Playbook it could not comment on personnel matters, but “can confirm that action was taken upon receiving the inquiry. We are nearing the conclusion of our investigation and have interviewed a number of people with information as part of this process.” “We are unwaveringly committed to providing an environment free of unlawful discrimination, harassment, or retaliation and are staunchly against all forms of bigotry, including antisemitism and Islamophobia,” the college added. Barnard has come under fire in recent months for what some students and faculty characterize as its chilling of academic freedom and free speech in relation to the Israel-Hamas war. The college in December removed a statement expressing Palestinian solidarity from a department website. Last week, Barnard began removing all decorations from students’ dorm room doors, many of which are political in nature. Meanwhile, Columbia University, of which Barnard is an affiliate, is the subject of a congressional investigation into allegations of antisemitism on campus and one of several universities being investigated by the Department of Education for antisemitic and anti-Muslim harassment. — Irie Sentner WATCHDOGS WANT MORE FOIL: Reinvent Albany, a watchdog group that advocates for a more transparent government, now wants the state to treat Freedom of Information Law requests as a core government service. The group published a new report that examined the FOIL requests to six different government agencies: the MTA, Empire State Development, New York Power Authority, the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying of Government, Board of Election, and the Division of the Budget. Their findings led them to believe that GovQA, the digital public records software that is used for FOIL requests, is not being used properly. Reinvent Albany wants the Hochul administration to adopt a new policy of “release to one, release to all,” meaning the completion of all FOIL requests should be made public. They also found a difference in response time to requests, as well as the number of submitted requests — finding that the MTA received large quantities of requests that have created a backlog dating back one year. Across all six of the agencies, on average, they took longer than the 20 required days to respond to a request. — Shawn Ness
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