City’s recovery outpaces rest of country

Recent data suggests that New York City’s economy is
recovering more quickly than that of the nation, though not quite as quickly as Manhattan’s commercial real estate investment market, according to Sam Chandan, chief economist for Real Capital Analytics. Writing in the Observer, and citing the New York Fed’s Coincident Economic Index, a report that aggregates statistics relating to
current economic activity in New York City, Chandan said the most recent recession was not
as severe as the one that preceded it in 2001. This discovery contrasts with national
statistics, which show a milder recession at the beginning of the previous
decade.

Economic activity, the flow of goods and services, declined 8.4 percent
from peak to trough in the city during the 2001 recession which took 57 months
for the city to fully recover from, while the recession beginning in 2008 saw
activity fall 7.4 percent from peak to trough. Linear extrapolation of this
trend suggests that the city will have fully recovered in approximately 45
months– a full year earlier than before and surpassing the recovery rates of most
peer markets. Additionally, job growth has been recorded in the financial
services sector, in contrast with other markets, while the national statistics
show that the industry is struggling. It is expected that New York City will
regain all of its recession losses in 2012, two or three year before the national
labor market. Chandan credits government intervention in the financial sector, and a concerted effort to diversify the city’s economy with fending off a worse recession. [NYO]