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With summer weather keeping New Yorkers outdoors, and a continual growth in visitors to the city, there's a measure of optimism in the air—notwithstanding a recent uptick in the Covid-19 positivity rate—as New York City appears to be mounting an energetic comeback.

Yet some problems persist, with job growth slowing since Fall 2020, especially in the service sectors. In our very first issue of NYC Thinking Regionally we looked at the region's then still nascent recovery. In this sixth edition we return to that theme, spotlighting how the NYC Metro is doing nine months later.

NYC Metro Economic Recovery Dashboard
We've also built an interactive dashboard, NYC Metro Region: Tracking the Recovery, to keep tabs on the region's progress. The tool reports employment patterns prior to and since Covid-19, updated monthly, to provide you with all the latest economic trends that matter.
Data Spotlight:
Covid-19 and the NYC Metro Economy
As the economy recovers from its April 2020 low, NYC Metro employment is level with September 2013.
NYC Metro Total Employment

As of June 2021, the NYC Metro had 10.2 million total jobs, the highest since April 2020, a month which marked the lowest NYC Metro employment in more than two decades. In the 13 months since, the NYC Metro gained back approximately half of the jobs lost but remains 1 million jobs below February 2020 employment. The current employment level matches that of September 2013, which is 6% higher than the Great Recession’s lowest point in February 2010 (9.6 million jobs).

The NYC Metro lost the most jobs among major U.S. metros since February 2020. Though it recovered the fastest following April 2020 lows, the NYC Metro's growth has since slowed.
NYC vs. U.S. Metros

While April 2020 also represented the month with the lowest employment in other major metros and the U.S. overall, the NYC Metro experienced both the greatest job loss (-1.0M jobs) and the highest rate of decline (-19.6%) from February to April 2020. Since then, the NYC Metro gained jobs back the fastest, representing an 10.9% gain through September 2020.
 
Subsequent growth, however, has slowed considerably. That slowdown is generally consistent with national trends, but the NYC Metro job growth of +1.6% from September 2020 to June 2021, has been slower than all but the Chicago Metro (+1.5%). By contrast, the Los Angeles Metro grew by +4.3%, fastest in that period among major metros, outpacing the U.S. on average (+2.7%).

NYC Metro, and especially NYC, local services sectors experienced the greatest job losses and steepest declines, well exceeding the U.S. on average.
NYC vs. U.S. by Macro Sector

Much of the reason the NYC Metro lags the U.S. average can be attributed to sustained losses in the Local Services macro sector, which includes Leisure and Hospitality, Other Services (e.g., laundromat, automobile repair), and Retail. The NYC Metro’s Local Services decline was 1.5 times greater than the U.S. average in April 2020 and, despite a recovery pattern that mirrors national trends, the gap between the NYC Metro and the U.S. has since widened. Similarly, the NYC Metro saw higher rates of job loss in the Industrial macro sector than the U.S. on average, but Industrial macro sector decline was less extreme than Local Services compared to January 2019 employment levels.

NYC experienced a disproportionately higher share of the NYC Metro’s job losses across many sectors due to Covid-19, especially concentrated in Local Services sectors. Though NYC accounted for 45% of the NYC Metro’s Leisure and Hospitality employment in January 2019, it represented 86% of the NYC Metro’s Leisure and Hospitality job losses through June 2021. Similarly, NYC accounted for 33% of NYC Metro Retail jobs in January 2019, but 55% of NYC Metro job losses in the sector through June 2021.
 
The losses underscore the impact of fewer visits from daily commuters and tourists on NYC’s service economy. There were, however, some bright spots for NYC, which gained Information sector jobs and Education and Healthcare (private) sector jobs despite losses elsewhere in the NYC Metro.

To explore monthly industry trends for all NYC Metro subregions, please visit our economic recovery dashboard.
While NYC's unemployment is higher than the surrounding NYC Metro, which nears the U.S. average, it is half of its May 2020 peak.

NYC’s unemployment rate peaked at 20% in May 2020, the highest since these data have been reported. Though it is now half that rate, it is still nearly twice the national average and remains higher than the other NYC Metro subregions. The rest of the NYC Metro is slightly above or below the U.S. average, and in Long Island and the Hudson Valley unemployment rates are close to February 2020 (pre-Covid) levels. It is important to note that while the number of people that are unemployed has increased throughout the region, the size of the labor force has also decreased slightly, contributing to higher rates of unemployment.

Employment reported for the NYC metropolitan region represents an aggregation of U.S. BLS reporting geographies, which include metropolitan divisions and custom subregional jurisdictions in parts of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. County-level monthly employment data are not available through the Current Employment Statistics data program. These data represent the most recently available information as of July 27, 2021. This approximation for the NYC metropolitan region is used for consistency with previous reporting by NYC DCP. Some data by industry sector for the Danbury Labor Market Area in Connecticut were not reported due to privacy disclosure constraints. Unemployment data are reported by county, and represent the 31-county region typically covered in NYC DCP research.

Have a question or want to get in touch? Email us.

Planning News from the Region

Strict limits on multifamily housing construction along Long Island's rail corridors, argues the New York Times Editorial Board, means billions of public dollars are being invested with little regard for equitable or environmental considerations.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has called on the MTA to expedite the City's first-in-the-nation congestion charging program, saying "congestion pricing will ease traffic and fund mass transit, and New Yorkers can't wait any longer to get it started."

The Newark Bears and their minor league stadium lasted just more than a decade. City officials hope the most recent proposal for the eight acre site4,200 units of new housing and 100,000 sq. ft. of commercial space—will transform downtown for generations to come.

Finding "the right balance between individual property rights and public good" is never easy, said Scarsdale mayor Jane Veron ahead of a meeting to consider new height, bulk, and floor area ratio (FAR) restrictions in the village where the average household income is $452,000.

The owners of the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford plan to redevelop the state's largest mall into a mixed use center, adding 500 units of housing and 450,000 of life sciences space while retaining a significant amount of the existing retail and restaurant space.

When NYC residents move to the region's outlying areas, housing and labor issues often follow. In upstate New York the problem is particularly acute, that according to this Daily News reporting.

New York City has made a big push to bring tourists back to the city. Those efforts appear to be paying off as nearly half a million hotel room nights were sold in early July, the highest number since before the pandemic began.

What We're Thinking About

"Economic growth and development mean the enrichment of the people who live here, not just adding more population," argues urban economist Frank Braconi in this episode of the Growing Cities podcast.

The Northeast Corridor Commission has released a 15 year reinvestment program, dubbed C35, that outlines 150 rail related projects costing a total of $117 billion. About $17 billion of that total has currently been appropriated.

Land use restrictions, by limiting the supply of housing, often stand in the way of flourishing communities. Some argue the federal government should play a larger role. Eric Kober, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, in this insightful report on the jobs-housing mismatch in U.S. metros, thinks otherwise.

In an era of renewed interest in national industrial policy, it's critical that state and local jurisdictions are not competing in a race to the bottom. Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs, advocates a turn to regionalism as an answer.

Upcoming Planning Events
Across the Region

 

Planners in Purpose, Inside and Outside the Industry
American Planning Association-NY Metro Chapter
Friday August 6, 2021
12:00pm (virtual)

Hindsight 2021: Planning Through the Equity Lens

November 4-5. 2021
Session Proposals Invited
Deadline for Submission: Friday August 6, 2021

Have an event you want us to be aware of? Let us know by replying to this email.

About Us

The Regional Planning Division was borne out of OneNYC, the Mayor’s long-term plan for the City, which highlighted the need for the city to work with neighbors across borders to promote a sustainable and equitable future for our shared region. You can read more about our team and our work here.
 

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Want to contact us or learn more?
Send us an email, or visit our website nyc.gov/region.
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New York, NY 10271

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