Posted on 03/22/2022 9:32:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The percentage of white-collar workers in New York City office buildings remains abysmal. Workers aren't returning, and it's crushing the local economy.
NYC's 7.6% unemployment rate is shockingly high compared with the rest of the country (nationwide average of 3.8%) as an economic recovery is slow to materialize, according to Bloomberg. There could be a muted recovery without five-day-a-week commuters because their impact on the local economy is substantial.
Keycard swipes tracked by security company Kastle Systems show NYC offices are about 36% occupied, far below pre-COVID levels. Even as companies announced return-to-office dates, many implemented a hybrid work model that allows white-collar workers to work remotely part of the time. Some companies have entirely reduced their corporate footprint and enforced remote working for some employees.
According to the latest survey by The Partnership for New York City business group, only 16% of top NYC firms say daily attendance in their Manhattan office was above 50%. The poll showed that about 75% of employers delayed return-to-office plans due to a spike in COVID infections year, and 22% said they don't have a timeline on when offices will be full again.
On Oct. 29, 2020, we noted that NYC's recovery will be a "long slog" from here as the downturn will last well into 2023 and lag the rest of the nation. It seems we're right, and the source of a lackluster recovery is directly related to workers that aren't returning to offices.
Mark Vitner, a Wells Fargo senior economist, said the city is "enduring a slower recovery because it is so dependent on the office and entertainment sectors."
"Cities that were quicker to reopen following the initial lockdowns at the start of the pandemic have also tended to see stronger recoveries," Vitner said. What may have damned the metro area were public officials and their inability to lift health mandates that crippled the local economy, forcing tens of thousands of people, if not more, out of the area and to suburbia or Florida.
Newly elected Mayor Eric Adams has argued that remote and hybrid work situations are crushing service-oriented businesses in the city that solely rely on white-collar workers, such as the food and entertainment industry.
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data shows there are 275,000 fewer paychecks in just Manhattan compared to pre-COVID times. Manhattan jobs account for a whopping 57% of the city's overall economy.
"Manhattan is an enormous economic and social driver," said Andrew Rigie, the New York City Hospitality Alliance executive director.
Manhattan's unemployment rate is the lowest among the boroughs. The Bronx has had the slowest employment growth.
As firms fled Manhattan during COVID to places like Florida and Texas, the borough's financial industry has likely seen another peak in jobs. Also, factor in the increasing amount of automation in the financial sector, and the job situation in Manhattan looks even bleaker.
NYC leads the way in lackluster employment gains.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan housing market has been on fire as the number of sales spike and median rents soar.
An economic revival in NYC will lag the rest of the country as long as remote work persists. So what happens to all the empty commercial-office buildings?
Escape from New York is coming back as a documentary
I do work that “could not possibly” be done remotely in most cases. Now this work is done remotely the majority of the time. This is the way the world changes - an inflection here, an inflection there.
People overwhelmingly do not want to return to the office and now realize beyond any doubt that it is completely unnecessary. They are refusing to take jobs that are not 100% remote and are leaving jobs that try to force them back into the office.
What will happen to empty office buildings? Sell them to developers. They’ll convert plenty of them into apartments or condos.
Expensive cities like NYC and San Francisco are gonna take it right in the shorts. You don’t need to live there. Even a crappy salary level in those two cities would allow someone to live quite comfortably in America.
And soylet green factories
RCV was recently approved in NYC for a reason.
Gothamites won’t get their city back until they do two things: Get rid of RCV and go back to dumb voting machines.
How could this have happened?!? /s
Sounds like a lot of people learned something. From being able to do their job from home, to the education system, to government health department tyranny.
Employers, smart ones anyway, learned they could eliminate a bunch of overhead costs. Either take it as profit, reward employees better, reinvest in the business.
The days of the cubicle life and corner office scramble is over. A many people are happy to see it go.
It also indicates for all the hype that surrounded NYC it never was all it was cracked up to be marketed as. All the big cities are learning this. The city insanity stopped.
This may very well prove to be the one glitch in the progressive agenda. Remember they want people in controlled housing stock, they want suburbs to disappear, etc. People have decided they like their house, their yard, their safe parks and safe communities.
How ya’ gonna keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen LA? Sars-Cov-2 LOL.
The tourism-heavy hotel industry, in particular, faces a long, steep climb to recover job losses.
“Under 20,000 of 55,000 jobs have returned in the hotel sector. So far, 125 hotels and 18,000 rooms remain closed,” said Vijay Dandapani, CEO of the NYC Hotel Association.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/19/hochul-budget-shows-nyc-hotels-tourism-and-retail-wont-recover-jobs-until-2026/
Something I didn’t see mentioned in the article or the comments is the crime.
The out of control crime. Not worth the trip.
The laptop has made the downtown business district redundant.
Since liberals believe that everybody they tax likes to pay higher taxes, the idea of not raising tax rates will cause exploding heads all over liberal enclaves. Good time to invest in Service Master and similar businesses. "Like it never even happened!:"
Vertical cemeteries for NYC murder victims.
Companies will not re-new their long term leases....
They will be bought up by rich Democrats for pennies on the dollar and when the economy comes back, they will make a killing. DeBlahBlah did the same thing with the Horse and Carriage stables. Destroyed it and then some donor bought the property.
Die MFer Die. San Fran, Chicago etc.
Re: America - there haven’t been cities more deserving of hell since Sodom/Gomorrah. Every bad thing that comes their way will be well deserved. Their destruction is my joy.
A starvation event would be perfect.
It seems that when some commie POS fills your luxury hotels with criminals and drug users, tourists don’t want to come anymore.
Surprising, but true.
DiBlasio was a great “success.” He undid everything that Giuliani accomplished. It’s what DiBlasio ran on. It’s what he intended to do. It’s what the majority of voters expected he would do. They got back their 70s hellhole.
When BLM became the most welcomed group to city hall and the NYPD chose to disengage under Hizzoner, I let HR know that I wouldn't be traveling to NYC for any reason. I caught a lot of crap until the majority of the regulars there decided they didn't want to risk their safety either.
We're at less than 25% occupancy since being cleared to return and I'm pretty sure it's going to result in a 100% voluntary office return. We'll very possibly be out of NYC in a couple of years. We'll definitely be out of our current space which is awful expensive for 25%.
I won't miss the two-bus, two-train, two-block walk or the stench of NYC.
The emerging fact is that New York City is obsolete, not required or by many desired.
Shedding all the crap associated with working in a city is a significant realization that there is a much better way
Culture, plays, art, museums, blah blah blah bull shit
Here is mine Holy Commandment: Droppest thou thine soft-on-crime policies, and thou wilt see some recovery.
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