2023
ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
Photos by Getty Images
A cloud has lifted on New York as the door opens to 2023.
With crowded streets, eager tourists, office districts tiptoeing back, generational infrastructure projects underway and creative communities thriving once again, the city seems poised to re-create itself, not just for the year ahead but for the coming decade.
Although last year saw notable recovery, gloom remained. Local employers added 185,000 jobs in the first 11 months of the year. But the city missed a benchmark the country as a whole reached in August of regaining all pandemic-era lost jobs.
If hiring keeps pace and layoffs don’t accelerate, the city could get back to its record 4.7 million jobs midyear, though it is likely to take another 12 months.
Of course a complete recovery will not happen in a vacuum. Macroeconomic headwinds foretell an economic struggle that could ripple through the city once again. While plenty of economists seem to believe the Federal Reserve may successfully engineer a so-called soft landing that lowers inflation without causing a recession, key city industries will meet their own challenges, from labor shortages and regulation to layoffs and rising prices. — Cara Eisenpress
