It’s that time again. Yes, the latest local jobs numbers have been released! And without a doubt, the New York City economy continued its march forward with a solid 9,000 private sector jobs created in August, according to the New York Comptroller’s Office. If you’re keeping score, that makes seven out of eight months of positive growth in 2013—for a total of 88,400 new private sector positions.
Each month, Newmark (NMRK) Grubb Knight Frank Research takes a deeper dive into these job numbers to check on the winners and losers. (Hmm, “losers” is a bit harsh. Let’s just say “laggards.”) For the sake of brevity (and to keep you from nodding off), I’ll focus on just the key changes in August.
Winners:
- A very special shout-out to the manufacturing sector, which was up 1,400 jobs in August. This is the first positive figure since October of last year and the biggest jump seen since 1999. It remains to be seen if this is adjusted a few months down the road. Regardless, “bespoke” manufacturing is currently all the rage in NYC and around the country.
- Education crossed the 200,000 jobs threshold in August for the first time ever. An extra 2,800 positions added during the month did the trick.
- Professional services almost saved the day for the entire office sector in August (more on this under “Laggards”) with a jump of 3,800 positions, its biggest monthly increase since January of this year.
Laggards:
- After racing forward for the previous three months, real estate slipped on a banana peel and lost 3,600 positions in August. (This is the biggest monthly drop seen in recent times and may have more to do with a seasonal adjustment issue—either on the positive or negative side.)
- Securities had generally been holding its own (up a bit one month, down a bit the next) for the last year and a half. It has, however, lost jobs for each of the past three months now culminating in a drop of 1,700 positions in August. This is its largest single monthly loss since August 2009—exactly four years ago. Total jobs in the securities sector (163,400) have now fallen to the lowest level since July 2010.
- All figures are subject to change, and they almost always do. The good news is that, as we push into the last third of the year, NYC will end up in the winning column for total private sector jobs, easily one of the top five years since 1991. Of course, we’re dealing with reality, so there will no doubt be a few losers—sorry, laggards—in the mix!
