ALBANY – New York City has as many private sector jobs now as it did before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the recovery has been uneven across economic sectors.
“The city’s job recovery is good news,” state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said of an analysis released Friday.
“We are seeing strength in the securities, transportation, warehousing, and office sectors, but retail, restaurants, construction and tourism continue to lag the national recovery.”
The findings highlight the Big Apple’s ongoing struggle with the economic damage caused by COVID the month after the federal government officially ended a three-year national emergency.
New York City has 99.4% of the total number of private sector jobs that existed when the first reported cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in the Empire State in March 2020.
Securities jobs increased by 6.41% between March 2023 and March 2019, with 192,700 positions currently filled, according to the analysis.
An analysis released by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli showed New York City has recovered most of the total jobs lost to COVID though some sectors like retail are still struggling. REUTERSOffice jobs jumped 3.72% during that same period — to 1,513,100 overall despite the current 22% vacancy rates in commercial office spaces.
Transportation and warehousing also grew slightly to 130,300, but other sectors have not been so lucky.
- The arts, entertainment, and recreation sector shrank by 14.59% in that four-year period to just 79,600 jobs overall, down from 93,200 in 2019.
- Tourism decreased by 14.50% to 243,153 jobs.
- Retail downsized from 343,900 jobs in March 2019 to just 300,400 in March 2023, a 12.65% decrease.
- Construction jobs fell 8.07% to 145,900 across the five boroughs.
- Restaurants have seen a 4.54% cut in staffing.
The city has a total of 4,078,300 private sector jobs now compared with 4,035,500 four years ago – a 1.06% bump overall, according to the analysis.
Retail is one industry where total jobs are still less than before COVID-19 slammed New York in 2020. Getty ImagesDiNapoli warned that embattled industries like the arts, hospitality, and retail will need to regain more jobs to ensure the long-term survival of the positions they have already recovered,
“We need these sectors, which employ hundreds of thousands of workers, to also regain their full pre-pandemic strength to ensure the city’s economic recovery is more robust and inclusive of all New Yorkers,” he said.
