Real estate work among post-recession laggards: OPINION

Number of industry jobs in NYC still well shy of 2006 peak

Construction in New York City
Construction in New York City

The post-Great Recession recovery story in New York is considerably stronger than in the nation as a whole. Still, a handful of sectors remain relatively depressed — including real estate.

By mid-2011, New York City regained the jobs lost during what Crain’s columnist Greg David dubbed the “Little Recession,” boasting a record roster of 4 million workers. But the recovery has passed by several sectors, including the governmental, manufacturing and financial fields. Real estate is fourth on that list of laggards, with 11,700 fewer industry jobs than in 2006.

The reason real estate has declined, David wrote, is not clear. But the industry, he wrote, remains well below peak “despite all those cranes constructing super-luxury condominiums.”

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The bottom line, according to David, is that most of the sectors struggling to recover their pre-recession peaks simply will not become robust again. “So, the expansion of the economy remains dependent on the sectors that have led this recovery: retail, tourism, tech, film and movie production, and higher education,” he wrote.

Cornell University, for instance, snagged the city’s go-ahead to build a technology campus on Roosevelt Island — a 2.1 million-square-foot project slated to kick off construction this year. [Crain’s]Julie Strickland