New York Got Some Good News From That BLS Revision
It’s looking as if the city has gone from "dead forever" to outpacing the nation in its recovery from the job destruction of the early days of the pandemic.
The job recovery from the pandemic has been remarkable.
Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg
At the same time earlier this month that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its headline-making preliminary estimate that US nonfarm payroll employment as of March was 911,000 lower than previously reported, it also published preliminary annual benchmark revisions for states and large metropolitan areas. The standout by far was New York, with the BLS estimating that there were 109,600 more payroll jobs in the state in March than previously reported, and 102,800 more in the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area.
With the estimated benchmark revision for New Jersey coming in at plus 31,500, and the only other New York metro area for which the BLS reported data (Buffalo-Cheektowaga) showing a downward revision of 2,300 jobs, the great majority of the upward adjustment seems to have been in New York City and its New York suburbs, and I would guess that most of the jobs were in the city itself. We won’t know this for sure until next March, when the state and metro-area benchmark revisions are finalized and incorporated into the monthly jobs data, but it’s now looking as if New York City may have outpaced the nation in its recovery from the job destruction of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even in the pre-revision data, it’s been getting quite close.