Planning for changes in job trends

The city analyzes employment trends to guide capital investments, helping to create jobs and support growth in areas expected to expand. These efforts also reinforce nearby affordable housing and mixed-use developments that encourage small business success. Emerging central business districts also need sufficient transit capacity.

As of late 2024, NYC was home to a record level of 4.6 million jobs, exceeding the city’s pre-pandemic peak by almost 100,000. While 53 percent of the city’s jobs are in Manhattan, outer-borough growth has increased employment rapidly. Many industries have recovered and grown in employment, but local services have yet to fully recover to pre-pandemic job levels, even though retail spending has recovered, and storefront vacancy has declined for five straight quarters. Furthermore, since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has experienced a dramatic shift in employment and the nature of work, with 16 percent of New Yorkers primarily working from home, which is a three-fold increase.

In response to the changing landscape and to promote growth, the city is improving access to jobs through improved transportation connections, such as buses and ferries, opening workforce centers across the five boroughs, hosting virtual services, and making investments in commercial business districts, campuses, industrial districts, and neighborhood commercial streets.

To provide more opportunity and flexibility, the City of Yes for Economic Opportunity plan provides businesses with more options through updated zoning, making it easier for existing businesses to find space and grow, and for new businesses to open, helping to activate unused storefront space and create bustling retail corridors.

The increased prevalence of remote and hybrid work as a permanent option has created a fundamental shift in demand for office space nationwide. In NYC, office vacancies remain elevated in the post-pandemic environment, though demand for new class A office space remains strong. New city policies, including those adopted through the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, enable office conversions to housing to mitigate the impact of commercial vacancies and address a housing crisis. Further, the city has advanced neighborhood rezonings that add commercial square footage throughout the five boroughs to maintain and grow business districts and retail corridors.

Training New Yorkers for economically resilient and climate-responsive jobs

Over the next decade, the city is making strategic investments to help prepare and connect New Yorkers to jobs in strong and emerging sectors of the economy. The city will continue to invest in workforce centers in each of the five boroughs through new construction and existing building improvements.

Standalone institutions will train New Yorkers for recession-proof and climate-responsive jobs. On Governors Island, the Center for Climate Solutions, launched in 2020, positions New York City as a global leader in the development of just solutions to the climate crisis by supporting research into urban climate solutions, which will drive growth of accessible green jobs, and further public awareness and action. When completed, the Center for Climate Solutions will be home to 7,000 jobs on Governors Island alone and will serve as a national model for the growing green and blue-tech sectors.

Furthermore, in 2024 the city launched the Green Economy Action Plan to further boost its status as a leader in the green economy. By 2040 this plan will have trained and employed 400,000 people in the skills needed to build a more equitable, sustainable green economy ecosystem.

Supporting Growing and Changing Neighborhoods

As the city grows, capital investments are critical to maintaining and improving residents’ quality of life. This includes a focus on targeting neighborhoods with struggling businesses and high commercial vacancy rates, addressing historic disinvestment, supporting key public realm advancements and improving access to recreation, housing, community services, and educational opportunities.

One way the city has planned for growth is through the New York City Strategy for Equity and Economic Development (NYC SEED), launched in 2022, as part of the Adams Administration’s Economic Recovery Blueprint. SEED is a framework that prioritizes cross-agency capital planning investments to support essential development in neighborhoods across the boroughs.

Through stakeholder engagement, DCP and its partner agencies evaluate neighborhood assets and needs to establish a set of potential capital investment opportunities that will inform a neighborhood plan. These investments in streetscapes and public realm design, open spaces, housing needs, schools, waterfront access and transit-oriented accessibility, aim to improve communities for both current and future residents.

Since its initial launch the SEED process has been incorporated into neighborhood plans citywide; most recently in the Bronx Metro North Area plan, approved by the City Planning Commission in 2024. Through this plan the city committed to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in public amenities and infrastructure to enhance: (1) pedestrian safety, transportation access, and traffic circulation with intersection and streetscape improvements; (2) make improvements and renovations to public parks, playgrounds, and open spaces; and (3) rezoning near new transit hubs to promote the growth of affordable housing and retail uses.