The report, “Building a Digital City: The Growth and Impact of New York’ s Tech / Information Sector’, features both an in-depth, quantitative analysis of New York’ s technology sector and a qualitative study of the attributes that have enabled New York and San Francisco to become the nation’ s two leading “digital cities’.
The tech/information sector includes tech start-ups, established tech companies, and major information companies such as Bloomberg L.P. and the New York Times Company. Without these pillars of the information economy ‘” serving as clients, investors, sources of talent and ideas, and major employers of tech workers in their own right ‘” the New York City tech boom could not have occurred.
Some key findings:
- As already noted, New York City’ s share of the nation’ s private sector employment has reached its highest level in 20 years because of the growth of the tech/information sector.
- There are 262,000 workers in the New York tech/information sector, contributing almost $30 billion annually in wages to the local economy.
- While the financial sector, including real estate, is the most single important engine of the New York economy, the tech/information sector is now number two, surpassing the private health care sector.
- Between 2007 and 2012, the number of private sector jobs in NYC rose by about 4 percent, compared to a 3 percent decline nationally.
- Since 2007, when the Great Recession started, New York City’ s tech/information sector has grown by 11 percent, or some 26,000 jobs, adding $5.8 billion in additional wages to the economy. Indeed, these wage gains accounted for two-thirds of the growth in private sector wages over that stretch.
- Using a conservative estimate, the tech/information boom was responsible for roughly one-third of the private sector job creation in New York City since 2007.
- New York City also significantly outperformed its suburbs during this period. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, private sector jobs actually declined by 3.8 percent from 2007-2012 in the New York metro area outside the city. Tech/information jobs also dropped by 6.9 percent in the suburbs, compared to an 11 percent gain in the city.
- The growth of Brooklyn’ s tech/information sector has outpaced every other large county in the country, with the exception of San Francisco. This includes traditional tech hubs such as Austin; Seattle; Cambridge, MA; the Research Triangle; and Silicon Valley.
New York has long been recognized as the capital of finance, fashion, media, and the arts – and we now have the numbers to demonstrate what has become increasingly clear: New York is the country’s hottest and most dynamic tech capital. We’ve worked to foster the tech industry’s growth here, and that’s one reason why New York City has been a national leader in job creation,
said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Download the report “Building a Digital City: The Growth and Impact of New York’ s Tech / Information Sector”, (PDF file).