One day after the state’s Department of Labor released data showing New York City’s employment levels have fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, Mayor Eric Adams tied the city’s economic rebound to his administration’s public safety initiatives.
Speaking with “Mornings On 1” anchor Pat Kiernan Friday, Adams sounded a familiar refrain.
“If you can’t get people back on your subway system, then they’re not going to go into offices, they’re not going to go and visit out nightlife associations – our restaurants, where people are going to sit down and feel comfortable. That was the foundation,” Adams said.
Since the height of the pandemic, state department shows the city has recovered nearly 1 million jobs.
Data shows the city is back up to around 4.7 million public and private sector jobs. More than 100,000 jobs have been added compared to a year ago at this time.
The city’s success, in some ways, seems to mirror national trends: Businesses across the U.S. economy ramped up their hiring last month, defying surging interest rates, financial market turmoil, the ongoing threat of a government shutdown and an uncertain outlook to add the most jobs in any month since January.
Deputy Mayor Maria-Torres Springer, who joined Adams during the remote appearance, put the city’s job growth in stark terms: “We’ve recovered more jobs than cities like San Francisco or Austin have people.”
And yet, the deputy mayor acknowledged economic security for many New Yorkers remains elusive.
“Is our work done? Of course, it isn’t,” Springer-Torres said. “Raising [New Yorker’s] wages, connecting them to jobs, and creating more affordability by building more housing -- because we all know that the pressure on New Yorkers in terms of rent in this city is too high. And there, too, we’re working on all cylinders to change that equation.”
The mayor also briefly touched on a series of other subjects, including the number of migrants who have received work authorization permits and the city’s decision to lift limits on electric Uber, Lyft and other rideshare vehicles.