Highlights

• The Partnership’s Q2 2024 Dashboard is live.
• New York City is now home to 183,000 small businesses—1,000 more than pre-pandemic.
• Rebounding international travel increased passenger volumes at New York regional airports to the busiest first half of a year in history with 71 million passengers served.
• Our latest Spotlight explores newly released data that shows public school enrollment increased for the first time since 2016 in the 2023-2024 school year, although at least one analysis projects future declines.

Key Statistics

Private sector employment hit a record high 4.2 million jobs in June 2024 despite a slowdown in job growth through the first half of 2024.

• Total employment in the city increased by 50,000 jobs in the first half of 2024, including 38,300 jobs added by private sector employers.
• The health care sector added 37,500 jobs during the first six months of the year, or 99% of private sector job growth in 2024.
  • The health care industry now accounts for 24% of total private employment, up from 20% pre-pandemic.
  • Home health care employment has increased 45% since pre-pandemic.
• Initial weekly claims for unemployment insurance—considered a leading indicator of the job market—remain low, suggesting employers are retaining talent.
  • Less than 8,000 initial weekly claims submitted by city residents on average during the month ending August 3, down 18% from 2023 but up 12% from 2019.

New York City business and consumer sentiment remains above the national average.

• 42% of New York City residents expected their personal financial conditions to improve over the next year as of mid-Q3 2024, a larger share than the U.S. (35%) but down from a recent high of 49% in Q1 2024, according to survey data from Morning Consult’s Intelligence Platform.
• The share of New York City executives (company CEOs, owners, or founders) with positive expectations of business conditions over the next five years dropped to 43% in Q3 2024 but is larger than the U.S. share (38%), according to Morning Consult.
• The overall consumer sentiment index in the metro New York City area was 79.1 in Q2 2024, 10.9 points ahead of the U.S. index of 68.2, according to the Siena College Research Institute.
  • The index captures consumer optimism about current and future economic conditions; a higher index value represents greater optimism.

Clear signs of distress among disadvantaged New Yorkers undermine steady topline economic indicators.

• 558,000 New Yorkers received public assistance in June 2024, the most in at least four years and up 69%—or 226,000 recipients—from June 2019.
  • The Bronx accounts for 16% of the city’s population but over one-third (35%) of public assistance recipients.
  • Approximately 85% of public assistance beneficiaries are either Black or Hispanic.
• Despite progress, the unemployment rate among Black (7%) and Hispanic (6%) New Yorkers is still higher than that of white (4%) city residents as of June 2024.

New York City companies raised nearly $13 billion in venture capital (VC) funding in the first half of 2024, up 27% from 2023.

The largest VC deals raised by New York City companies in the first half of the year include:

• $1 billion raised by cloud security platform Wiz
• $700 million raised by food delivery startup Wonder
• $685 million raised by brokerage services platform Clear Street
• $650 million raised by market intelligence platform AlphaSense
• $400 million raised by artificial intelligence drug development startup Formation Bio
• $350 million raised by clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Metsera

New York City has more small businesses today than pre-pandemic, driven by sustained new business formation.

• As of Q3 2023, New York City is home to 183,000 small businesses with fewer than 50 employees, a record high and 1,000 more small businesses than pre-pandemic levels, per the New York City Economic Development Corporation.
• 62,000 small businesses were established in the two years ending Q3 2023, significantly higher than the 52,000 launched in 2018 and 2019.

The city’s tourism industry continues its gradual recovery.

• The city is on track to welcome 64.5 million visitors in 2024, up 4% from 62.2 million in 2023, according to the latest estimates from NYC Tourism + Conventions.
  • Tourism is projected to reach a new record high of over 68 million in 2025.
• A record high 70.6 million passengers traveled through the region’s airports through the first six months of the year, up 1% from the previous high of 69.6 million in the first half of 2023.
  • International passenger volumes increased 8% in the first half of 2024 compared to 2023.
  • Rebounding international travel is vital to the continued recovery of the city’s tourism sector; pre-pandemic, the average international visitor spent nearly four times as much as the typical domestic tourist.
• New York City hotels had an occupancy rate of 85.1% for the four weeks ending July 13, down 4% during the comparable period of 2019, according to CoStar, a global provider of real estate data, analytics, and news.
  • Total demand for city hotel rooms was 8.1% lower than the same period pre-pandemic.
  • Hotel prices in 2024 through Q2 2024 are up 5.6% compared to the same period in 2023 and up 21.4% from pre-pandemic.
  • Nearly 19,000 hotel rooms across over 150 hotels currently shelter recently arrived migrants, which has affected occupancy rates and room prices, according to Hotel Association of New York City and the City Comptroller’s office.

• Broadway has struggled to fully recover to the success of its record-breaking 2018-2019 season; late July 2024 Broadway attendance and sales were down 16% and 14%, respectively, from the equivalent pre-pandemic period.
  • Shows attracted 240,000 theatergoers and grossed $31 million in sales during the week ending July 28.

Commuter rail ridership continues to outperform that of buses and subways.

• Weekday subway ridership recovered to 66% of pre-pandemic levels in July, exceeding the recovery of bus ridership (57%) but lagging that of the Long Island Rail Road (73%) and Metro-North (70%).

Spotlight

New York City public school enrollment increased for the first time in eight years in the 2023-2024 school year. Public school enrollment dynamics provide insight into the city’s broader population trends and have implications for funding, school budgets, and the local labor force.

• Total enrollment in district New York City public schools—including enrollment in the city’s 3-K and Pre-K programs through high school and excluding charter schools—increased by 5,100 students in 2024.
• The small enrollment increase reversed a trend of declines that began in the 2017 school year and was exacerbated during the pandemic, when enrollment dropped by over 95,000 students, or 10%, between the 2020 and 2023 school years.

Newly admitted migrant students likely fueled the enrollment increase in 2024.

• More than 36,000 students in temporary housing enrolled in the city’s public schools for the first time between July 2022 and March 2024, an increase driven by the influx of more than 200,000 migrants since spring 2022, according to the City Comptroller’s office.
• The vast majority of recently arrived migrants immigrated from South America, likely driving the 4% increase (+14,100 students) in the Hispanic student population in 2024, by far the largest change of any major race/ethnicity group.
• Notably, the English Language Learners population—students who speak a language other than English at home and need support learning English—also increased by 14,300 students (11%) over the past two years.

A longer view shows the composition of the student body has changed markedly over the past decade, reflecting the city’s demographic shifts.

• 34% decline in the number of Black public school students over the past decade, from 271,000 in 2014 to 177,900 in 2024. Black student enrollment has dropped 18% since 2020 alone.
• 1% increase in the Asian student population since 2014, the only major race/ethnicity group with increased enrollment over this period. Asian enrollment increased every year from 2013 through 2020 before declining 5.7% from 2020 to 2024, the second smallest pandemic-induced decline after the Hispanic population (-2.4%).
• The Hispanic student population declined 8% over the past decade, including every year since 2017 until the aforementioned 4% enrollment increase in 2024.

The once-every-decade Census counts—the most reliable population estimates—found the city’s total Black population declined by 84,404 people (-5%) to 1.8 million between 2010 and 2020. Over the same period, the Asian population increased 34%, or 345,400 people, to 1.4 million in 2020. New York City’s Black population declined a further 6% between 2020 and 2022, according to the State Comptroller’s office.

Declining birth rates are projected to lead to declines in public school enrollment over the next decade. The projections, prepared by Statistical Forecasting LLC for the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA), were published in April 2024 prior to the release of finalized enrollment figures for the 2024 school year, and projected a decline in enrollment in 2024. Further, historical enrollment totals provided in the SCA projections differ from those in the official counts, as SCA excludes the city’s special education district and off-site students.

Even so, the projections provide important insight into how birth rates and population trends will likely put downward pressure on public school enrollment. SCA expects enrollment to decline 22% from 2024 to 2033, or an average of 2.8% annually. Notably, the projections assume the increase in enrollment due to the recent migrant influx is a temporary, one-time inflow that will not continue.