海角大神

Hari Maharjan steps out of a service elevator onto the thickly carpeted second floor in a downtown hotel. Pulling on his rubber gloves, he pushes a groaning laundry cart along the hushed corridor.

Mr. Maharjan, a housekeeping trainee, is shadowing a room attendant with nine years on the job. Maharjan is assigned a marble-floored bathroom to clean 鈥撀爁resh towels, mopped floor, as-new fittings. 鈥淚f the guest sees a hair, there will be trouble,鈥� the attendant says, bending to excavate the soiled bed linen.

While the training may look typical for a low-wage job, Maharjan isn鈥檛 your ordinary trainee. The 40-something father of two used to own his own store and before moving to the United States had worked as a cook in a Hilton hotel in Dubai. He sees cleaning rooms as a foothold into the American hospitality industry that he can parlay into other hotel jobs that demand more skills 鈥撀燼nd pay higher wages. Maharjan eventually wants his workdays to be measured out in more than towels and linens. 鈥淚 love meeting the customers. It makes me feel happy,鈥� he says.

This also isn鈥檛 a story about another person losing their footing in America鈥檚 middle class. Instead, Maharjan and his 16 classmates are the first to take part in a pilot project designed to help workers without college degrees land increasingly elusive well-paying jobs with benefits and a career path. 聽

鈥淲e need to change the narrative. It鈥檚 about quality jobs, great jobs. A living wage with benefits, and a career ladder,鈥� says Trinh Nguyen, director of the city鈥檚 Office of Workforce Development.

Using federal grants, Boston is doubling its enrollment of low-income workers in apprenticeships for construction and hospitality to 100 a year. Maharjan鈥檚 class of 17 graduated this month from a US Department of Labor-recognized 鈥減re-apprenticeship鈥� program for housekeeping 鈥撀燼 national first. After they start working, trainees will continue to receive career coaching and grants for part-time college tuition.

This focus on apprenticeships and associate degrees makes sense for Boston, says Alicia Modestino, a labor economist at Northeastern University. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 do a very good job of producing individuals at a middle-skill level of education,鈥� she says.

These are the workers that employers increasingly covet, particularly when it comes to supporting the highly educated professionals of which Boston has a surfeit. While hospitals have no problem recruiting doctors, 鈥渨e can鈥檛 find enough surgical technicians,鈥� says Ms. Modestino.

By most measures, Boston is a success story, a city of knowledge and innovation anchored by deep pockets and good schools. Biotech research is booming. General Electric is moving its headquarters here. The statewide unemployment rate recently hit a 15-year low. 聽

But the spoils of the growth aren鈥檛 equally divided. In fact, Boston led a recent Brookings survey of cities by income inequality: The top 5 percent of households took home nearly 18 times as much as those in the lowest 20 percent. While that bottom quintile is swelled by a large student body that is unlikely to remain in that income bracket, the city has pockets of poverty that sit uncomfortably with the idea that innovation hubs like Boston and San Francisco are charting a post-industrial future for all.

34,000 workers in five years

Across the country, the bulk of job growth since the 2007-09 recession has been in lower-paid service jobs such as retail and restaurant work that don鈥檛 require a college degree, fueling criticism of a two-track economy that has become a brake on social mobility.

Boston isn鈥檛 the only city that is pushing innovative apprenticeships in high-growth industries as a way to tackle inequality in its labor force. It received $3 million for these pre-apprenticeships from the Department of Labor last October, part of a $175 million program聽designed to train 34,000 workers over five years.

Other recipients include:

鈥� Mission College in Santa Clara, Calif., which is training data technicians and support specialists to work in high-tech companies in Silicon Valley.聽聽

鈥� A manufacturing consortium in Springfield, Ill., which is developing new apprenticeships that connect the workplace to community colleges.

鈥� Houston Community College is rolling out health-care and IT apprenticeships for hundreds of workers in the Gulf Coast and Greater Dallas region.

Still, Boston already has job openings that offer a path to the middle class. The question is whether residents who only have a high school degree or less 鈥撀�36 percent of those aged 25 and up 鈥撀燾an apply. They also face the 鈥渦p-skilling鈥� of jobs by employers who became more picky about qualifications when the labor market was slack, demanding a bachelor鈥檚 degree for positions that previously went to high school graduates.

To bridge this gap, city and state officials are investing more in vocational schools, trade apprenticeships, and other training programs that give recipients a shot at landing a better job.

In the case of housekeeping, it is exacting work. Large hotels now require all employees to speak serviceable English and complete safety courses to comply with public-health regulations. The upside is a job that pays well above minimum wage 鈥撀燼nd the possibility of future promotions for self-starters, even without a college degree.

鈥淗ospitality is a profession where you can move into almost any position in a hotel without a high school diploma. You can work your way into the position,鈥� says Marie Downey, the executive director of the nonprofit that runs the Hospitality Training Center (HTC) that graduated Maharjan鈥檚 class. 聽聽

Located on the third floor of a brick building above a cream-bun bakery in Boston鈥檚 Chinatown district, HTC trains students in mock hotel rooms and chef鈥檚 kitchens. One floor up is UNITE Here Local 26, the union that helps fund the training. Graduates who are hired at unionized hotels 鈥撀爊early 6 in 10 in the Boston area 鈥撀爐ypically start on $18 or more an hour, nearly double the state $10 minimum wage, plus union benefits that include family health plans and housing loans.

Brian Lang, president of Local 26, says apprenticeships offer a way for hotels to recruit workers who already know the ropes and are more likely to stay in their jobs once hired. Given the boom in hotel construction in Boston 鈥撀爏everal major operators are opening or expanding this year alone 鈥撀爐he demand for staff is rising. For Mr. Lang, the question is whether these workers will be covered by union contracts that put a floor under wages.

鈥淲e鈥檙e talking about an industry that鈥檚 incredibly profitable. It鈥檚 expanding and investing here. Well, you鈥檙e coming to Boston. Let鈥檚 see you share the wealth,鈥� he says.

Previous HTC graduates are already seeded among Boston鈥檚 hotels; some have a decade or more of experience. What鈥檚 different about the pre-apprenticeship program, says Ms. Downey, is that applicants were vetted in multiple interviews both for their aptitude and ambition. 鈥淭hey want to get their foot in. They want to succeed,鈥� she says.

Nearly everyone in the first graduating class is an immigrant, like Maharjan. HTC runs other training programs targeting the city鈥檚 minorities; one is specifically geared to help African-Americans.

Born in Nepal, Maharjan moved to Boston in 2004 with his wife and twin sons. His first job was in an Indian restaurant kitchen. By 2011, he had saved enough to buy a convenience store in Somerville, a gentrifying city adjourning Boston. He opened seven days a week,聽6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., and staffed it with family and relatives. Then came two armed robberies within seven months that told him it was time for a change.

鈥淓ven with your own business you don鈥檛 save much money,鈥� he says.

Four months ago, he sold the store and began looking for a new career.

A hotel job paying $18 an hour certainly sounds good to these trainees.

In 2014, nearly half of all Boston residents, including the unemployed and those in part-time work, earned less than that on annualized basis, according to a study commissioned by the mayor's Office for Workforce Development (OWD). And this in a city where the cost of housing and other essentials are among the nation鈥檚 highest.

The study calculated that in a two-parent, two-child household with one child in preschool, both parents would need to make $16.96 an hour, or $35,277 a year, to cover their costs 鈥撀爓hat it calls a 鈥渇amily-sustaining wage.鈥� In 2014, more than a quarter of full-time workers earned below this.

For residents who don鈥檛 finish college, the odds are increasingly long. A six-year forecast of job openings in Boston for the OWD study found that four out of 10 required a bachelor鈥檚 degree or higher, compared with a national average of 26 percent. While many of these jobs had high salaries, most of the listings for entry-level service jobs 鈥撀爓aiters, cashiers, cooks 鈥撀爓ere well below the 鈥渇amily-sustaining鈥� wage.

The occupation with the largest forecast number of openings 鈥撀�795 a year 鈥撀爄s registered nurse, with an average income of $95,000. It requires an associate degree, though most nurses have at least a bachelor鈥檚 degree, underscoring the education gap for many Bostonians.

In a coauthored paper for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Modestino found that some of this up-skilling in job listings was a function of the recession as employers sought out more skilled candidates from a larger pool of job seekers. Since 2012, she has noted a downward trend as labor markets tighten and recruiters lower the bar. But 鈥渟ome of this stuff sticks,鈥� she says.

Take administrative assistants: 4 in 5 currently don鈥檛 have college degrees. But job openings, including one-for-one replacements, are the reverse: 4 in 5 require degrees. Employers argue that these jobs have become more skilled because of IT systems and digitization of data. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e invested and put dollars into that system; you鈥檙e not going back鈥� to high school graduates, says Modestino.

Why not move to a cheaper city?

Given these inequities, should workers in low-paid service jobs pack up and move to cheaper cities? Why stick in Boston when so many jobs are going to college graduates and bypassing the average worker? 聽

Not so fast, says Enrico Moretti, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He argues that high school graduates living in innovation hubs like Boston have better prospects than their peers in more affordable rust-belt cities.

Every job created in highly skilled industries like biotech has a multiplier effect on the local service sector, from real estate to retail to health services, and that means steady jobs and competitive wages. By contrast, cities based around traditional manufacturing aren鈥檛 producing enough jobs for their own high school classes, says Professor Moretti, author of 鈥淭he New Geography of Jobs.鈥�

鈥淲ell-paying blue-collar positions are going away every year. Local service jobs are not. They鈥檙e very labor intensive and not outsourceable, by and large,鈥� he says.

Back at the hotel, Maharjan has finished cleaning another bathroom. His forehead is slick with sweat. The room鈥檚 TV is switched to the hotel鈥檚 welcome message for the next guest; an instrumental guitar picks out 鈥淗otel California.鈥�

Maharjan doesn鈥檛 linger. Another room needs cleaning. 鈥淚 love to work. But being a trainee is not easy,鈥� he says.

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