Apply here, tech whizzes and gamer geeks.
Despite 9 percent of New Yorkers’ being unemployed, according to the state Labor Department, the growing tech industry in DUMBO, the small, affluent waterfront corridor between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, can’t find enough qualified workers.
“This is a rapidly growing, competitive industry, but at the same time, there’s a major shortage in talent,” said Alexandria Sica, executive director of the DUMBO Business Improvement District.
“So you have this major disconnect, and it’s limiting the ability for our companies to grow.”
The BID says there are currently 17 DUMBO tech companies trying to fill some 329 Web, app, gaming and other tech-related jobs.
Shirley Au, president of the digital-consulting firm HUGE, says part of the problem is that the tech industry is “so new that most universities aren’t dedicated to it yet.”
“We have to work doubly harder than other fields to recruit good workers,” said Au, whose Washington Street headquarters has grown from eight employees in 2005 to 350.
She needs to fill another 50 jobs.
Other local jobs available include 150 at educational-software giant Wireless Generation, DUMBO’s largest employer, and 50 at the Web business Etsy.
Wireless Generation is owned by the Post’s parent company, News Corp.
The businesses are among more than 65 operating in a five-block hub of digital office space that DUMBO developer Two Trees Management markets as “Silicon Beach.”
Au and other local tech honchos say a key step to filling the void in qualified employees would be for NYU to finally reach a deal to bring an applied-sciences graduate school to the former MTA headquarters on nearby Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
The price tag for the site is holding things up, with the sides about $40 million apart.
Shortage in tech talent is also a national issue. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last month, said, “Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job.”
For its part, the Bloomberg administration in December tapped Cornell University to build a $2 billion grad school for applied sciences on Roosevelt Island by 2027.