Reports

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated pre-existing staffing pressures, particularly a shortage of staff nurses, in NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) facilities, leading to an increased reliance on temporary nurses and higher staffing costs. This report includes a trend analysis of nurses in New York City and the rest of the State, challenges to hire more staff nurses nationwide and the experience of H+H nurse staffing during this time.

As New York City’s overall taxable sales begin to normalize from their pandemic-fueled levels, various economic sectors, most notably leisure and hospitality, continue to recover their pandemic declines. As national retail sales growth slows from its double-digit pace of 2021, City retail sales and associated revenues could see a return to historical growth rates following the next two fiscal years.

More than two years after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, young people are still facing double-digit unemployment. There are currently over 70,000 unemployed young workers in the City, nearly two times as many as in 2019. Young men are struggling the most with nearly 24% remaining unemployed, significantly higher than in the rest of New York State and the nation.

Attrition outpaces hiring among New York City’s municipal workforce, which could have an impact on critical City services and programs. The City’s full-time workforce declined by 19,113 employees over the last two years, the largest decline in staffing since the Great Recession of 2008. Despite the City hiring over 40,000 new employees in the last fiscal year, City job vacancies stand at more than 21,000.

Technology sector employment in New York City increased by 33.6% (43,430 jobs) from 2016 to 2021 to reach a record high of 172,570 jobs. The city’s private sector lost 3.3% of jobs during this same period. Businesses in the tech sector also grew, accounting for 22.3 percent of the City’s total private firms added during the same period. Most of these firms consisted of fewer than 10 employees and contributed to the citywide growth in microbusinesses during the pandemic.

Communities in the Rockaways were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic. Despite the challenges, local economic indicators have slowly improved as the pandemic has worn on, with the number of Rockaways businesses growing in 2020 and 2021. Since the City’s reopening following the height of the pandemic, local stakeholders in the Rockaways have made concerted efforts to promote economic recovery and improved environmental conditions, with a focus on mitigating the impact of extreme climate events.

New York City’s transportation and warehousing sector regained 82% of its pandemic job losses as of April 2022. The sector’s relatively strong job gains over the past two years were fueled by increased demand for moving goods rather than people during the pandemic. An explosion in e⁠-⁠commerce led the growth in the courier and messenger, and warehousing and storage subsectors, which now well exceed pre-pandemic employment levels.

New York City lags the rest of the State and the nation in restoring pandemic job losses and in rebounding to pre-pandemic levels of unemployment. The recovery has also been uneven, with high-wage economic sectors generally faring better than low-wage sectors. This report aims to understand the main differences in labor force participation among the City’s workers and the reasons for the City’s slow recovery when compared to rest of the State and the nation.

From 2010 to 2020, Brooklyn experienced substantial economic growth, with employment and business growth rates outpacing the rest of New York City. However, the pandemic halted its economic progress and exacerbated existing inequalities in the borough. Brooklyn’s economy is showing signs of recovering to pre-pandemic levels, but City and State officials will need to collaborate with community leaders to ensure an equitable recovery.

Accelerating consumer price increases beginning in the spring of 2021 have led to the highest inflation rate in 30 years in the New York City Metropolitan Area. Consumer spending habits have already shifted, and persistent inflation on essential household items, such as housing and food, will limit purchasing power and squeeze household budgets absent stronger wage growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City particularly hard, causing massive job losses at major employers such as restaurants, hotels and retail stores. These dashboards follow a series of reports released over the past two years tracking economic data and the effect of the pandemic on these critical sectors and will help identify areas of weakness as well as positive developments.

Arts, Entertainment and Recreation | Construction | Office | Restaurant | Retail | Securities | Tourism | Transportation and Warehousing

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many businesses in retail trade, restaurant, and arts, entertainment and recreation closed. This report examines the damage the pandemic has inflicted on those sectors, and considers the distribution of federal funds for businesses in the City, particularly for businesses in low- and moderate-income communities and in historically underutilized business zones.

Flushing, and the surrounding neighborhoods that make up the greater Flushing area, enjoyed outsized employment and business growth from 2000 until Queens became the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Local challenges that existed before the pandemic, such as affordable housing and broadband access, have made recovery more difficult, but key positive indicators such as job recovery are reasons for optimism.

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The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out years of growth in New York City’s office sector. Stay-at-home orders forced many office workers to shift to remote work, as businesses reliant on in-person interactions with customers were forced to reduce capacity or remain closed for extended periods. As a result, in City Fiscal Year 2022, the full market value of office buildings fell $28.6 billion, the first decline in more than 20 years, and property taxes declined more than $850 million. Timing its recovery is an open question, however, as employers continue to offer work-from-home options.

Population in the Bronx grew by 10.4 percent from 2000 to 2017 (faster than any other borough), driven primarily by the growth in the immigrant population, but it declined in the next two years to 1.42 million residents.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a halt to the growth of the construction industry nationwide which, prior to the pandemic, had been growing strongly. This was especially true in New York State and New York City.

In 2020, the 10-year period of record growth in tourism came to an end, and the number of visitors to New York City fell by 67 percent to 22.3 million (from 66.6 million in 2019). OSC estimates the industry’s economic impact dropped by 75 percent from $80.3 billion in 2019 to $20.2 billion in 2020.

Comptroller DiNapoli has launched an interactive online tool of subway ridership that details where straphangers are, and are not, returning to the subway system, alongside neighborhood and local demographics, employment and income.

As of December 2020, arts, entertainment and recreation employment declined by 66 percent from one year earlier, the largest decline among the City’s economic sectors.

Although New York City was an early epicenter for COVID-19, only 45.6 percent of firms in the City received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, below the national average of 50.9 percent.