New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today announced the launch of new online dashboards to track data for key industry sectors in New York City on a regular basis, providing policy makers and the public with a look at how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the city and how its recovery is progressing.
“New York City is a national leader in finance, the arts, tourism and hospitality,” DiNapoli said. “The COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City particularly hard, causing massive job losses at major employers such as restaurants, hotels and retail stores. There is no doubt the recovery of New York state requires a robust and equitable recovery in New York City. Our new dashboards will track the progress of these critical sectors and help identify areas of weakness as well as positive developments.”
The dashboards track various economic and fiscal aspects of the construction, office, securities, restaurant, retail, tourism, and the arts, entertainment and recreation sectors. The dashboards follow a series of reports DiNapoli’s office released over the past two years tracking economic data and the effect of the pandemic on those sectors.
The tools offer details for each sector, including employment and salary data. It also provides information on how each of the sectors compares with the private sector overall as well as the rest of the state and nation.
Additionally, the dashboards track metrics unique to the sectors, such as hotel occupancy for the tourism sector, number of diners for the restaurant subsector, and vacancy rates for the office sector.
Key information and trends identified by the most recent data:
- Arts, Entertainment and Recreation: Employment in the sector fell by more than half in the first months of the pandemic. Despite gains made last year, employment in the sector in December 2021 remained 17.9% below what it was in March 2020.
- Construction: Jobs in the sector rebounded from a low of 87,200 in April 2020 to 135,600 in December 2021. That is still far below the industry’s peak of 164,000 in October 2018.
- Office: Vacancy rates remain at historic highs due to a shift in demand for office space even as employment in this sector has rebounded from a low of 1.3 million jobs in May of 2020 to 1.4 million in December 2021.
- Restaurants: Shutdowns related to the pandemic caused a 70% drop in jobs from March to April 2020. At the end of 2021, the subsector (part of the accommodation and food services sector) remained 20.8% below pre-pandemic levels.
- Retail: Despite a 9.2% increase in 2020, retail salaries remain about half that of the total private sector.
- Securities: While many sectors continue to experience improvement in employment recovery, securities saw further declines in 2021 (that began in 2019), a troubling trend given its outsized impact on wages and tax collections in the city and state.
- Tourism: The sector lost 46.9% of its employment when the pandemic hit and remains 35.2% lower than the fourth quarter of 2019.
The NYC sector dashboards will be updated regularly. Employment levels will be updated monthly for most sectors with other information updated as new data becomes available.
Dashboards
Arts, Entertainment and Recreation
Industry Sector Reports
Arts, Entertainment and Recreation (issued in February 2021)
Construction (issued in June 2021)
Office (issued in October 2021)
Restaurants (issued in September 2020)
Retail (issued in December 2020)
Securities (issued in October 2021)
Tourism (issued in April 2021)
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