NYC’s young men, people of color struggling to find work, Comptroller DiNapoli says

ALBANY — Young people in New York City are still struggling to find work despite unemployment plummeting across the U.S. following the peak of the COVID pandemic, according to a report released by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

More than two years after the height of the coronavirus crisis, younger New Yorkers continue to face double-digit unemployment, with young men and people of color experiencing the greatest challenges in finding jobs, DiNapoli’s office found.

Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds stands at nearly 18% in the five boroughs, as compared to about 9% in the rest of the state and 8% nationally.

Overall unemployment is currently 5.6% in the city, and 3.4% across the U.S.

“The city must take steps to strengthen career opportunities for young job seekers or the city’s economic recovery will be stifled even further,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “The recovery is much slower for young workers in New York City when compared to the rest of the state and the country and has had a particularly profound impact on young people of color and young men.”

While youth unemployment rates have nearly recovered to pre-pandemic levels across the U.S., including across most racial and ethnic groups, minorities in the city are still struggling to find work.

DiNapoli’s office found that unemployment rates for young Black (18.5%), Hispanic (23.3%) and Asian (23.3%) workers in the city are higher than their white (16.2%) counterparts.

The report also reveals a wide gender disparity in job seekers, noting that nearly 24% of young men in the city remain unemployed.

DiNapoli suggests that the unemployment rate among young men is higher in the city than the rest of the nation because a greater share worked in the leisure and hospitality sector, which is one of the city’s hardest hit industries.

Restaurants, hotels and other businesses have yet to fully recover 15% of their pre-pandemic job losses, and there may not be enough openings in the sector to meet current demands, he notes.

DiNapoli suggests the city continue to prioritize youth employment programs such as the CUNY Inclusive Economy Initiative, pairing young jobseekers with local employers and ramp up efforts to provide at-risk youth or youth from low-income households with stable jobs and career paths.

The report comes a week after DiNapoli’s office issued the first in a series of analyses that found the Bronx has the highest level of poverty in the state and minorities are twice as likely than white New Yorkers to struggle financially.

The study found that almost 2.7 million New Yorkers, just under 14% of the state’s population, lived in poverty in 2021, compared to 12.8% of all Americans the same year.

The Bronx remains the county with the highest poverty rate in the state at near 24%, while Brooklyn and Manhattan also both came in higher than the state average at 17.8% and 16.3% respectively.