I have a plant in Newark and we have the same problems with new hires, but there’s a difference between the pool of workers from which we draw.
The recent immigrants are good. The older ethnic blacks not so much. But we have good to excellent blacks from the Caribbean. Russians have excellent training and technical skills. Indians are smart but form cliques. Forgive the stereotypes but they are real.
Just hired a Pakistani truck driver who’s also good, but can’t find any other drivers. They are very scarce everywhere.
I always tell my kids (who think I’m a total bigot) that there are stereotypes for a reason. To turn the pointed finger to my own ethnic group, in a beach town in your state there’s an Irish owned/run supermarket. They used to import kids from the Auld Sod for the summer. No more. Now their summer employees are largely Eastern European. When asked WHY, they said because the Irish kids would go out drinking and not show up for work. (I know that’s frequently a problem with Russians, as well. Maybe these kids are from other Eastern Euro countries).
Newark and NYC are in an area that is being abandoned by Americans (that is why both NY and NJ have had de facto amnesties for decades). Employers are leaving as well, leaving behind those of us locked in mortgages, immigrants (illegal & legal), the permanent welfare class, and government workers.
I’ve noticed that more and more departments are build around an American “scribe” (the literate worker) with a group of low-information drones.