NYC Comptroller's Office Press Office


PR03-06-059		June 19, 2003
Contact: Press Office		212-669-3747

THOMPSON: NYC LOST 2000 JOBS IN MAY

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today released his office's analysis and seasonal adjustment of May job numbers that were released by the New York State Department of Labor and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"In the first 5 months of this year, the City has lost 12,500 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis," said Comptroller Thompson. "The unemployment rate fell slightly in May, but 2,800 fewer New Yorkers were working compared with April."

The numbers are reported according to the new NAICS classifications. ¹

Gap with Nation's Year-over-Year Job Growth Widens in May

The gap between New York City's job growth and that of the nation fluctuated for the first five months of 2003. The gap was 1.45 percentage points in May, 0.43 percentage points greater than the January gap. The City has lagged the nation since March 2001, with the gap opening up significantly in September 2001 and generally narrowing a year later until January 2003, as may be seen in Chart 1.

Chart 1. New York City Continues to Lag the Nation: Year-over-Year Monthly Percent Changes in Jobs, January 2000 through May 2003, United States and New York City

	NYC Y/Y CHANGE	US Y/Y CHANGE	DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NYC & US
January 03	-1.2%	-0.2%	-1.02%
February 03	-1.6%	-0.2%	-1.34%
March 03	-1.8%	-0.3%	-1.50%
April 03	-1.4%	-0.2%	-1.16%
May 03	-1.7%	-0.3%	-1.45%

Data Source: Computations by the NYC Comptroller's Office based on data from New York State Department of Labor and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Y/Y = Year over Year.)

Since December 2000, New York City has lost 231,200 jobs, seasonally adjusted, of which 152,500 (or 66.0 percent) have been lost since September 2001.

Seasonally Adjusted Jobs Fell by 2,000 in May

Seasonally adjusted government jobs rose by 1,000. Federal jobs fell by 800, and state jobs fell by 300 as local jobs (City and independent local agencies like the MTA) rose by 2,100. (This increase is on a seasonally adjusted basis; the raw data showed a drop of 600 jobs between April and May 2003.)

Seasonally adjusted private-sector jobs fell by 3,000. The two main areas of growth were leisure and hospitality, which added 2,000 jobs, and construction, which added 1,900 jobs.

On the down side, the largest loss was 3,200 jobs in trade, transportation and utilities. Manufacturing fell by 1,300 jobs, the information sector by 1,200 jobs and "other services" by 1,200 jobs. The high-paying financial activities sector (which includes banking, securities, insurance and real estate) lost 400 jobs.

These numbers may be seen in Chart 2, which combines several related NAICS categories to simplify the analysis.

Chart 2. Change in New York City Jobs by NAICS Category, May 2003 Compared with April 2003, Seasonally Adjusted
Data Source: New York State Department of Labor and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
revised series based on NAICS job categories.

Unemployment Rate Fell to 8.1% in May

The City's unemployment rate in May 2003, seasonally adjusted, fell to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in April.

The reason for the May drop was that 7,300 fewer New Yorkers were unemployed than in April. But 2,800 fewer New Yorkers were working in May than in April. The labor force participation rate continued to fall, to 57.6 percent from a high of 65.6 in July 2002.

New York City's seasonally adjusted May unemployment rate of 8.1 percent is 2.0 percentage points higher than the nation's seasonally adjusted May unemployment rate of 6.1 percent.

Unemployment by Borough, May 2003 and Comparison with a Year Earlier

Within New York City, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the May unemployment rate of New York City residents was highest in the Bronx at 9.4 percent and lowest in Staten Island at 6.4 percent. Unemployment was 8.6 percent in Brooklyn, 7.7 percent in Manhattan and 6.6 percent in Queens.

On a year-over-year basis, unemployment of New York City residents fell for Manhattan residents in May but increased for residents of the other four boroughs.

The decline in unemployment was 0.4 of a percentage point in Manhattan, from 8.1 percent in May 2002 to 7.7 percent in May 2003. The increase in May unemployment was greatest in the Bronx, where it rose by 0.5 percentage point compared with May 2002. The increase was 0.4 percentage point in Queens, 0.3 percentage point in Brooklyn and 0.2 percentage point in Staten Island.

¹The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) replaces the previous Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes that were developed in the 1930s when manufacturing accounted for a far greater portion of U.S. jobs. The SIC codes were last revised in 1987. The NAICS categories are based on a production-function concept, emphasizing new and emerging industries and service industries. The NAICS codes also facilitate comparability with Canadian and Mexican jobs data. The NAICS structure has 20 basic sectors, compared with the 10 basic SIC code industry sectors. A full description of the NAICS data may be found at http://stats.bls.gov/sae/saenaics.htm.