If you were to listen to the news reports of the great resignation, you might think that it’s all but over. People are getting back to work. The message is clear, there are jobs and people are able to work if they want to.
But how accurate is that? Just how truthful is that statement when a new study has come out and found that at least 30 percent of young men in NYC are not working.
And those numbers only tell part of the story. Long term unemployment in areas like the South Bronx, East New York, Washington Heights and East Harlem, and sections of Brooklyn are habitually in double digits.
So, if the jobs are there why are so many unemployed and how can this be?
Well, as any recruiter in the NYC area will tell you, many jobs are not highly paid and those that are in high demand.
Let’s step back and review some interesting issues.
30 Percent of Young Men in NYC Do Not Work
Here is one of the most telling stats in the NYC employment scene. Over thirty percent of young men (which includes adults into their mid twenties) do not work. This is a combination of both people not seeking work, or people being unable to find work.
In NYC, there is an issue of prevailing unemployment. People are not able to find employment, that is true, but there are also entire segments of the population who never seek work.
The issue with this new statistic, which is the most troubling, is that over 30 percent of young men are not working.
Those numbers rival the great depression that devastated the country.
Part of the reason why unemployment is so high in NYC is due to the extreme competition for jobs. The fact is that everyone comes to NYC looking to work. NYC is the business capital of the world. A such, there are many people competing for the same jobs.
For example, there recent college graduates who travel to New York and are willing to work minimum wage jobs. Oftentimes they are sharing rent with other recent college graduates and they also receive financial assistance from their parents.
The other issue with New York jobs is that they are either low paid, or require special skills, or are high performance executive work.
The most common jobs now in New York City are food service roles, manual labor roles that are not unionized, or low paid healthcare work such as Direct Care workers or Home Health Aids. All of these roles pay minimum wage.
Other jobs that pay a more livable wage require waitlists (government jobs) certifications (Registered Nurses or other medical work) or else excellent resumes and a record of performance.
For the average young man in NYC, minimum wage work is both hard to get (outside of retail, as the article attests) and also a dead end.
The Job Outlook: Don’t Trust the Numbers
The problem with relying on the job numbers that are released is that they are not an accurate representation of the reality. Many people are finding that the jobs that are in existence are both short term and low paying.
Many temporary agencies exist with the sole purpose of hiring part time labor for the many companies in NYC. These agencies exist so that large companies can find themselves temporary workers and not have to worry about benefits or other issues that are legally mandated when you hire full time workers.
This creates the cycle of permanent part time workers.
Also, the jobs that are being created are not high paying work and they do not offer benefits.
Work such as direct care work, where an individual is paid to take care of someone in a non skilled nursing role is not a career. Respite worker, direct care workers, and every other permutation of these roles are dead end jobs that only supplement money for people who are on benefits programs.
You cannot afford to live in New York City without a government benefit program if you are working a retail job or a social service job such as a respite worker or direct care worker.
Low Skill Healthcare and Retail: Minimum Wage Work
Minimum wage work is always a starting point and never a career. Most people will tell you that you cannot survive on minimum wage. So, why are so many people in New York City working minimum wage? Well, we’ll cover this in some more detail later, but it has to do with government subsidies and supportive housing.
The majority of the new jobs created have been in the service sector: fast food, customer service, cashiers, and cleaning jobs. None of these jobs pays much above minimum wage. These jobs also provide no benefits.
The fact is that without NYC’s social welfare system where many people are given supportive housing and free food vouchers and cash assistance, there would be turmoil and instability.
Jobs are places like Goldman Sachs and other established firms are not jobs that 99 percent of NYC residents will ever qualify for. The majority of New York City residents are fighting for the few remaining service sector jobs or government jobs as well as hospital work. Even with companies like Goldman Sachs demanding people return to work--which some suspect is tied to billion dollar real estate investments--many people are now operating remotely and the in-person roles are mostly minimum wage service jobs or government jobs.
NYC’s largest empoyers are the hospitals and the non-profits.
The Rent is Too High: So Who Pays The Rent?
The fact is that almost no one can afford to pay for rent in NYC. So, how do people afford to pay for rent?
Well, many people who move here after college share apartments with roommates. They also are often supported by their parents. That’s the so called “hidden trust fund baby” issue in NYC.
But even more than that, many people share small apartments with roommates well into their adulthood.
For people who live in New York City, they tend to remain with family. Intergenerational living is common in NYC due to the incredibly high rent.
Also, many people live on public assistance. For these people, they receive vouchers, section 8, housing program assistance, and other methods whereby the government will pay a private landlord for their rent. This helps people who either do not work or who work minimum wage jobs pay for rent. There are even special case managers whose sole job responsiblity is to find people who do not work housing and then file forms so that city will pay for that housing.
It’s also why real estate is one of the most lucrative business in NYC. Landlords know that the city of NY will pay them to house tenants, so there is never a shortage of revenue.
We’ll cover NYC real estate admin roles and marketing roles elsewhere, but it’s a good thing to know how lucrative a sector it is. Basically, if you are a real estate investor and you build a building in NYC, you will immediately turn a profit by engaging with a city connected non-profit to find you tenants who the city will pay for.
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