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New York City's job market is recovering from the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the latest federal statistics.
It took nearly four years, but Big Apple nonfarm payrolls totaled 4,737,500 jobs in January, nearly 28,000 more than the February 2020 total, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
From January 2020 to January of this year, the number of health and social care jobs grew by 15% and 23%, respectively, according to data first reported Friday by Bloomberg News.
The data also shows a slight increase in the number of jobs in financial and private education services.
But the city lost jobs in manufacturing, retail, and arts and entertainment, according to the data.
While the overall outlook was positive, it was tempered by the fact that the city's recovery rate has lagged compared to the rest of the country, surpassing pre-pandemic employment levels in June 2022.
Nevertheless, New York's nonfarm employment recovery outpaced other cities hit hard by remote work and pandemic-era shutdowns, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Nonfarm employment in the metropolitan area fell 4.8% in January compared to February 2020, while the San Francisco-San Mateo County region lagged 2.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The city still faces challenges in getting employees back to the office.
Train ridership has returned to 72% of its pre-pandemic level, up from about 68%, according to figures from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Office occupancy was 57% on average weekdays, up from 49% in January of last year and 44% higher than in September 2022, according to data collected by the New York City Partnership last fall.
But pandemic-era trends continue to hinder the city's recovery.
The New York metropolitan area will lose 65,000 residents in 2023, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.
More than 500,000 residents have continued to live in New York City since the pandemic began in April 2020.
Other large cities, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, are also losing residents, hampered by quality-of-life concerns such as increased crime, homelessness and rising costs of living.
Los Angeles lost 71,000 people last year, and Chicago, the nation's third-most populous metropolitan area, lost 16,600 people.
The biggest beneficiaries of the population shift will be Texas towns, led by Dallas-Fort Worth and the Houston metropolitan area.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area's population grew by 152,598 people last year, and Houston's population grew by 139,789 people, according to the U.S. Census.
Other Sunbelt cities whose populations are rapidly growing at the expense of colder climates and higher tax areas include Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, Charlotte, Austin, Phoenix, San Antonio and Miami.
The latest census figures were cited by Bloomberg News.
