Need a Job? Come to Brooklyn!
As if you needed further proof that Manhattan is a doomed and dying island comprised of little more than bankers and tourists riding in pack formation on Citibikes with no real destination in mind other than the nearest docking station, the New York Post reported on numbers released by the Center for an Urban Future show that “while Manhattan is still the heart of the city’s employment center, it’s the outer boroughs—especially Brooklyn—that are adding more jobs and at a much quicker rate. Manhattan now accounts for 60.5 percent of all private-sector jobs in the city—the lowest percentage ever.” See? Further proof that everyone wants to come to Brooklyn.
The Post goes on to report, “Brooklyn is the city’s fastest-growing job market and now accounts for 15.1 percent of jobs, a jump from 13.4 percent in 2000.” And while much of this growth can be attributed to the accompanying population boom that Brooklyn has seen, some of it has to be due to the fact that Brooklyn is just the best place ever, right? Kind of, actually. Not only have there been spikes in employment in traditional high-growth areas like “health care, education and retail sales” which are usually “driven by population growth,” but also more creative fields like “architecture, music and technology” have flourished in Brooklyn in recent years.
So does this all mean that it’s now really easy to find employment in Brooklyn? Hardly! As of April, Brooklyn’s unemployment rate hovered at 8.4%, which is a little higher than New York City’s at 7.7 % and higher still than Manhattan’s at 6.5%. It is however significantly lower than Los Angeles’s at 10.3%, which means that everyone I know who has moved to LA recently can come the fuck back already. Maybe they can get jobs in Sunset Park, which the Observer has spotlighted as the next neighborhood to watch, predicting that it will “blow up to citywide attention by 2015.” I guess we’ll have to wait and see about that. Until then though, happy job hunting!
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen
