Office jobs in New York City, defined as jobs in the professional and business services, financial activities, and information industries, have increased by 21,200 through October of this year.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the number for 2011 has been higher and, in fact, was up by 25,400 through July of this year before trending lower. In total, there are now 1.2 million office-sector jobs in New York City. During the recent downturn, it had fallen to 1.150 million. The record high since at least January 1990 was set in January 2001 at 1.298 million positions. For 2011, the problem areas have been information (down by 3,100), banking (down by 400) and insurance (down by 400). Believe it or not, the official numbers show that the securities industry is actually up by 900 positions this year, closing October at 168,900. That said, it remains well below the job levels recorded in late 2007/early 2008 (nearly 190,000) and back in late 2000/early 2001 (just over 200,000).
Robert Sammons, Cassidy Turley
