March 07, 2019 03:27 PM UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO

Worried about a recession in NYC? Relax

New job numbers show big gains in the last year

GREG DAVID   

Columnist

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Bloomberg

Three bad economic signals in the past month—weak
 retail sales,
 a disappointing report on gross domestic product and
 a huge
 trade deficit—
has the word recession in the headlines. But if you're
afraid
one is about to hit New York City, don't be.

Revised numbers for 2018 released Thursday by the state
 Labor Department
increased the gain in  jobs for last year by 52,000.
The agency now estimates
 there were 4.6 million jobs in the city
last month.
 The exact figure, 4,598,700, is also a surprisingly
impressive
 95,000 higher than it was in December  2017.
These
 figures reinforce the headline on the city comptroller’s
 quarterly
 economic report issued a month ago: "NYC Economy
Surges in Q4 2018."

State Labor Department

Here are the key
 changes and
what they mean.

Manufacturing lost more 
jobs than originally estimated. 
This is a perennial because each
  year there seems to be a small
 rebound in 
factory jobs that disappears when
 better data
 is available. The sector now accounts for only                                                              69,000 jobs in the city or 1.5% of the total.

Information jobs are growing. The revision boosted the
number of jobs 
    by 6% to about 200,000.

Companies continue to build out their operations staffs.       
Administrative
 jobs were revised upward by 12,000 to about a quarter
 of a million

Home  care just keeps growing. This is another sector 
with about 
200,000 workers . The revision added 7,000.

What is Mayor Bill de Blasio thinking? The number of
government jobs in
 the city was bumped up by 38,000 with the city accounting
for all but 1,500
of the additions. An updated chart from the Citizens Budget
 Commission
certainly shows what the mayor has done to head count,
 and it is quite a financial burden.