| October 2006 |
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| A focus on downtown redevelopment is attracting big employers |
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| As the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was remembered last month, attention was focused once again on New York's constantly changing financial district. Throbbing with vitality in the late '90s (the first time the World Trade Center actually achieved full occupancy), it was decimated by the stock market crash and then by the attacks.
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Today, the area finds itself in a full-flowering revival that is bringing in new financial-sector employers, all of whom have high demand for IT expertise. For example, Moody's is rumored to be ready to sign a lease for 15 floors in the newly completed 7 World Trade Center building. Also coming to the area are new residents who envision a vibrant live/work environment five or seven years down the road. By then, millions of square feet of new office space at the World Trade Center site will be complete, and the whole area will have been reinvented once again.
Mineto Kariya, a programmer of financial systems, who recently relocated from New York City to Washington, said that, "Finding a position in New York should be easy for an IT expert, with so many positions at all the banks, brokerages, and hedge funds. It helps a lot if you have some experience in the industry, but a sharp coder should be able to get into second-tier banks/brokerages easily, even without any financial experience. Then, once you've got two to three years of work experience, you'll be able to hop across to a higher-paying/more prestigious firm."
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| "Employers have more positive hiring intentions than they did a year ago" |
| - Paula Zimmerman, Manpower Employment |
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The New York State Department of Labor and The Empire State Development Agency estimate that there are 40,000 IT jobs available statewide in New York today, with the vast majority of them located in New York City. Employers such as Verizon, General Electric, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan Chase have all been on the hunt for IT talent, cranking up recruitment even down to the student level in order to meet their demand. At the same time public-sector employment in the city and state are at all-time highs, an encouraging bit of news for job hunters even if financial watchdog groups disapprove and are urging cuts.
The quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey confirms the trend, finding that 23% of the companies interviewed for its most recent report plan to hire more employees in the fourth quarter, a slight rise from 18% in the third quarter, according to Manpower spokesperson Paula Zimmerman. “Employers have more positive hiring intentions than they did a year ago, when 17% of companies surveyed thought employment increases were likely and 10% intended to cut back,” she said.
Further confirmation of activity in the market comes from IT staffing consultancy Robert Half Technology, whose fourth-quarter IT Hiring Index finds that 12% of New York CIOs plan to make new hires this quarter. And the Hudson Employment Index, a measure of overall employee optimism, said that New York's latest reading is the highest it's been this year, nearly 11% higher than it was at this time last year.
And at Dice.com, job postings were up 2% for the quarter, with a total of 11,875 listings available.
"New York City remains an economic dynamo," said Scot Melland, CEO of Dice. "We keep hearing that it's one of the easiest large cities in which to find good employment in the IT sector, although it's important to remember that the cost of living is high."
If you would like to be interviewed for the next Dice market report, or if you have comments about this article, please contact us at feedback@dice.com.
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| Dice job postings in New York are up 16% since Jan. |
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