Houston Strategies

PBS 7pm tonight - Houston Have Your Say on the Economy

A quick pass-along (thanks to Sandra for the heads up). Don't miss it tonight.

On a global scale, how competitive are Houston’s industries and workers? A local partnership of community and media groups will take up the topic during a televised community forum.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, May 7th, HoustonPBS, in partnership with The Center for Houston’s Future, Houston Community Newspapers, and Houston Public Radio will air their third Houston Have Your Say live on Channel 8 moderated by Patricia Gras. This community forum follows two others on immigration and regional growth.

“The goal of Houston Have Your Say is to draw attention to fundamental issues that impact our region and to create and sustain a dialogue space for our community to discuss important issues,” said John Hesse, general manager of HoustonPBS.

The regional outlook is unknown, a mixed bag of positives and negatives. Meanwhile, the Houston region is losing jobs and gaining people. The 10-county Houston metropolitan area sustained a net loss of 14,400 jobs from March 2008-2009, according to an estimate from the Texas Workforce Commission.

The live audience of participants, including the region’s leading economists and representatives from Chevron and Marathon Oil will discuss what is possible for the region, as well as where opportunities lie for work and study today.

“We designed this program to enable area residents to call or blog to express their opinions and questions. We hope it reaches a wide audience,” said Catherine Mosbacher, Center for Houston’s Future President and CEO.

During the show, viewers may call HoustonPBS at 713-741-8357 to ask questions of the audience. New this time, a jobs expert, Sue Cruver of Workforce Solutions, will moderate a live public chat following the show. A resource center for job searchers is available at www.centerforhoustonsfuture.org. The public may join the conversation online by posting comments on a blog at www.houstonpbs.org/haveyoursay.

Labels: economy

posted by Tory Gattis @ 8:26 AM