New York’s Workforce: Much has Changed in Six Years
by Oren M. Levin-Waldman, Ph.D., Labor Economist
Executive Summary
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, New York suffered huge losses in Leisure and Hospitality. Among Aura Intel’s top hiring firms, the greatest loss in the share of workers between 2019 and 2024 was in the financial services, followed by the insurance sector, and then retail. Meanwhile, technology companies like Amazon and Google grew their share of workers between 2019 and 2024 by 82.9 percent and 28.2 percent respectively. Employers increasingly in New York and elsewhere are placing greater value in what workers can do more than where they learned it. Moreover, they are more likely to hire those with skills, especially in digital literacy, a competitive workforce will require further investments in digital literacy-based education. Therefore, because 1/3 of New York’s workforce lacks foundational digital skills, greater investment in workforce development needs to be made. Also, public education will need to be retooled to ensure a more competitive workforce.
Introduction
In this article we examine the New York State economy and workforce from 2019 to 2025. Much has changed during this period, in large measure, due to the impact of COVID-19 and public health policies that were put into place. These policies resulted in effective lockdowns beginning in 2020 and would last until the end of the pandemic in 2021. Social distancing meant that many in the hospitality and tourism sector would lose their jobs. Those in the professions, especially in finance and information technology, would be able to work remotely, while “essential” workers would not. Essential workers, of course, included healthcare workers, police and firefighters, but they also included grocery workers, store clerks, gas attendants and mechanics, hardware store workers, and other sales workers in those businesses allowed to remain open. In the end, New York State suffered a workforce loss greater than the U.S., and the rebound from 2021 until 2025 was considerably less than in the rest of the country. Data from Aura Intelligence, however, reveals that the wave of the future lies in high tech and the information sector, and a workforce grounded in digital literacy.
Workforce Decline 2019-2015
In 2019, the U.S. had 164 to 165 million workers in the workforce, and New York had a workforce of 10.2 million. In 2021, which marks the end of the pandemic, the U.S. had a workforce of 161 to 162 million, and New York had a workforce of 9.8 million. The U.S. labor force declined by 1.8 percent, but the New York labor force declined by 3.9. The decrease was 116.7 percent greater in New York than in the U.S. By 2025, the U.S. had a labor force of 170.7 million, an increase of 5.4 to 6.0 percent. New York, however, had a labor force of 9.86 million, which was an increase of .6 percent from the end of the pandemic. Whereas the overall labor force in the U.S. increased 3.5 to 4.1 percent from 2019 to 2025, it declined by 3.3 percent in New York. From the above chart, the greatest losses due to the pandemic were in Leisure and Hospitality, followed by Professional Services. By 2022, employment in New York in information, professional/technical services, and finance had exceeded their 2019 levels. Leisure and hospitality, on the other hand, even after rebounding 19 percent in 2022 remained 10 percent below their 2019 levels.
Sectoral Shifts and Firm Level Trends
Aura Data of top hiring firms from 2019 until 2024, shows that some firms increased their share of workers while others decreased their share. The following graph shows the trends among the top hiring firms in New York for this period.
Still, these firms can be grouped to include Professional Services, Technology, and the financial services. As the following pie chart shows, the greatest percentage losses in the share of workers was the Financial Sector followed by the Insurance sector, which in this chart only consists of one firm: AIG. The other sector that saw a sizeable decrease in its share of workers was retail.
Meanwhile, there were sizeable gains among specific firms which can be seen in the following chart:
The biggest winners were in the technology sector. The share of workers at Amazon increased by 82.9 percent, mostly due to customers purchasing more goods online during COVID. Google increased its share of workers by 28.2 percent. Schools and colleges began synchronous instruction online during the pandemic, and higher education grew. Despite the losses in the financial sector, American Express did increase its share of workers by 9.5 percent. In the healthcare sector, the greatest winner was Northwell.
Economic Recovery and Unemployment
The pandemic hit New York especially hard. Unemployment in New York averaged 6.9 percent in 2021 but declined to 4.3 percent in 2022 and remained at 4.2 percent in March 2025. Still, the unemployment rate in 2019 was only 4.0. The recovery, then, suggests a decline in unemployment of 39.1 percent, but unemployment still stands 5 percent higher than in 2019. Whereas unemployment in the U.S. in April 2020 was 14.7 percent, it was 16 percent in New York State, a difference of 8.8 percent. Although by 2021 jobs were gradually rebounding, they still lagged in New York. By December 2021 New York’s private sector remained 8 percent below its February 2020 level. Full recovery in New York did not occur until early 2024 when private employment reached an all-time high of 8.346 million. The U.S. unemployment rate in 2019 was 3.5 percent, and then rose to 5.35 percent in 2021, an increase of 52.9 percent, compared to an increase of 72.5 percent in New York. Although the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 3.6 percent in 2022, it crept back up to 4.2 percent in 2025, which is now equal to New York State. If the main recovery was from 2021 to 2022, unemployment in New York was still 19.4 percent higher than in the U.S.
Income Inequality and Median Wages
Despite the pandemic, median household income rose in both New York and the U.S., but the increase was greater in New York than in the U.S. In 2019, median household income in New York and the U.S. were equal at $68,700. In 2021, median household income in New York was $74,314 and $70,784 in the U.S., an increase of 8.2 percent and 5.9 percent respectively. In 2022, median household income was $76,607 in New York and $74,880 in the US, which was a further increase of 3.1 percent and 5.8 percent respectively. By 2025, median household income was $84,578 in New York and $78,171 in the U.S. So, between 2022 and 2025, median household income increased by 10.4 percent in New York and by 4.5 percent in the U.S. From 2019 to 2025, median household income increased by 23.1 percent in New York and by 13.8 percent in the U.S. That is, median household income in New York increased by 67.4 percent more in New York than in the U.S. The cost of living is higher in New York than in the rest of the country, but by the composition of New York’s workforce many workers were able to work remotely, which would have sustained their incomes.
Median wages in New York for courier services are $17 to 18 an hour, with warehouse workers averaging $35 to 40,000 a year. Software engineers earned $120,000 and management consultants earned $100,000. Meanwhile, with median wages for registered nurses and mental health counselors are $77,000 and $50,000 respectively. Also, pilots were making at least $90,000 a year.
Because wages of those at the top of the distribution soared while those at the bottom fell, inequality in New York grew. The Gini coefficient has tended to be higher in the U.S. than the rest of the industrialized nations. A coefficient of zero means perfect equality whereas a coefficient of 1 means complete inequality. The Gini coefficient in the U.S. in 2019 was 0.415, a difference of 24.1 percent. The Gini coefficient in New York, the second highest in the U.S., was 0.515 prior to COVID. In 2021, the Gini coefficient in New York dropped slightly — .2 percent — to 0.514, but it dropped by 4.3 percent in the U.S. to 0.397. By 2025, however, the Gini coefficient in New York was 0.550, an increase of 7 percent from 2021. In the U.S. the Gini coefficient was 0.42, an increase of 5.8 percent from 2021. Because the increase in the Gini coefficient was 20.7 percent greater in New York than in the U.S., inequality in New York is 31 percent higher in New York than in the U.S. in 2025. Poverty rates in New York also remain high, which is important because rising inequality, especially as much as in New York state, suggests that the middle class has been bottoming out precisely because of the widening gap between the top and the bottom.
Remote Work and Skills Demand
Remote workers in white-collar jobs were less likely to be negatively affected by shutdowns, and many of those sectors retained workers, and even increased employment by shifting to telework. In 2019, only about 5 to 6 percent of American workers worked remotely. At the height of the lockdowns in 2020, 50-60 percent of work was being done remotely. Much of this work was being done in tech, finance, and professional services. The national rate of remote work in 2021 was 17.9 percent, which was triple what it was at 5.7 percent in 2019. 22 percent of workers in New York City were working remotely in 2021. By 2021, 30 to 50 percent of workers in professional services, information, and financial/insurance were working remotely. Although some workers began returning to their offices in 2021 through 2022, remote work remains above pre-2020 levels. As of 2024, on-site work in major cities is only 50-65 percent of pre-COVID levels. In New York City, for example, office occupancy in November 2024 was around 64 percent, which was 55 percent above the rest of the country.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, companies have placed greater emphasis on soft skills and adaptability. As a result of remote/hybrid, workers must be good at self-motivation, time management, and virtual teamwork. Job listings from 2022 to 2025 typically cite skills like independent problem-solving, flexibility, and collaboration. Emotional intelligence and customer service skills still are important, but soft skills have evolved from when they referred to employees being able to come to work on time, take directions, get along with others, and otherwise act responsibly. In New York where a high proportion of the workforce, relative to the rest of the country, hold advanced degrees, there is a move towards greater skills-based hiring. By 2025, employers are hiring based on specific skills competencies. Major companies like Google, Apple and IBM have eliminated degree requirements for many jobs; rather they are looking for demonstrated coding ability and design skills.
Sectoral Winners and Losers
New York’s economy is still driven by a mix of healthcare, finance, education, and professional service employers. The following table shows the top hiring firms in New York State. Some of these firms are among the losing sectors while others are among the winners.
Table 1 Top Hiring in New York
Given the trends that we saw earlier on, we can expect the financial sector to decline more, while retail that is technology-based, will increase. Among top hiring firms, some will be larger while others will be smaller. Those that are expected to grow the most are those who rely heavily on a digitized literate workforce.
Policy Implications
Doors have now been opened to job candidates who can either gain skills through bootcamps or on-the -job. This would also suggest an advantage for firms offering on-the-job training to new recruits, who in turn will develop employer specific skills. Employers now expect workers to possess basics to advance digital literacy. Aura Intel discovered that of the millions of job listings in 2023, 92 percent required at least some digital skills. This requirement appears to span industries from construction to tech. Even the non-traditional non-digital jobs like warehouse workers and retail associates often require the use of apps, point-of-sale systems, or office software. Workers able to use digital tools like Excel and Zoom, and other software are receiving priority in hiring. It was the pandemic in the face of lockdowns that forced the adoption of remote collaboration tools, such as e-commerce, telehealth, automation, among others. And yet, with this “digital upskilling,” the workforce is faced with a challenge because 1/3 of workers in the U.S. lack foundational digital skills.
The policy implications for workforce development, then, could not be clearer. Schools need to improve their K-12 curricula so that workers will indeed have the foundational digital skills for today’s workforce. Public education needs to be retooled to ensure a well-prepared labor force for the industries of the future. Therefore, investment in digital upskilling at both the K-12 and higher education levels is required. More employers need to offer on-the-job training so that their workers will have the exact skills that they require. Policies might be adopted that offer tax credits to employers offering on-the-job training. As New York develops a competitive labor force, new firms in turn will be attracted to replace those that have left. In short, this requires revisiting an old public-private partnership whereby the private sector creates jobs through investments, and the public sector delivers a skilled workforce prepared to work in new industry.
Conclusion
To summarize, COVID clearly had an impact on the workforce and arguably the nature of work in New York. Between 2020 and 2022, there were significant decreases in Leisure and Hospitality, Professional and Financial Services. And yet, there were monumental increases in the information sector, which is where opportunities in the future lie. The key conclusion, then, is that a workforce that has digital skills can expect to have opportunity and do well. What isn’t clear however but needs to be explored is the extent to which there is overlap. As an example, does what used to be professional and financial services now fall into the domain of information because of new digital literacy requirements? This is something an Aura analysis of job postings among the top hiring sectors can help sort out. Nevertheless, as employers are more likely to hire those with skills, especially in digital literacy, public policy in New York can be geared to make the state’s workforce more competitive, especially if further investments are made more in digital literacy-based education.
Oren M. Levin-Waldman is a labor economist who specializes in labor market profiling and demographic analysis. A Research Scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, he has been on the faculty most recently in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at The New School, Marist, Bard, and several other institutions over the years. Among his academic appointments, he held the Henry J. Raimondo Endowed Chair in Urban Research and Public Policy at New Jersey City University, and was for many years a Resident Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, where he also taught public policy.