NYC, center of information industry, has lost nearly 60,000 jobs since peak in 2000

NYC has lost nearly 60,000 jobs in communications

NEW YORK — New York City, the center of the nation’s information industry, has lost nearly 60,000 communications jobs since 2000, including in publishing and broadcasting, the comptroller’s office said Wednesday.

The New York City metro area lost 44,500 communications jobs from 2000 to 2007, and has since lost another 15,100 jobs through August of this year, according to the comptroller’s office. Preliminary figures show further declines for September, spokesman Michael Loughran said.

The office of Comptroller William Thompson Jr., who nearly unseated Mayor Michael Bloomberg earlier this month, released an economic report that said employment in communications was at its highest among the nation’s 20 largest metro areas in 2000, then declined at a 2.5 percent annual rate through 2007.

New York City accounts for about 19 percent of national employment in the communications sector, but has actually seen its share increase as other cities have fared worse.

The report said San Francisco lost a third of its information industry jobs while Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas lost more than one quarter.

Many segments of the communications field were already struggling before the recession, which then took a larger toll on advertising budgets, leading to layoffs and pay cuts throughout the industry. Major publishers have cut back, including Conde Nast, Forbes, Time Inc. and The New York Times.

The comptroller report said employment in publishing and telecommunications has seen the worst declines.

National employment in newspaper publishing peaked in 1990, while book publishing peaked in 1997 and periodical publishing in 2000.

“Each of those industries is currently undergoing wrenching technological and structural change and faces an uncertain future,” the report said.

Meanwhile, Internet and software publishing, which account for about 35 percent of all publishing jobs, lost more than 40,000 jobs nationwide between 2000 and 2007, meaning those segments have not grown enough to offset declines elsewhere, the report said.

New York City payroll jobs overall fell by 57,000 in September, bringing the total job losses since August 2008 to 113,700.

One bright spot — employment in the city’s financial sector, which had been at the heart of the economic meltdown, grew from 308,600 jobs in August to 313,100 in September, increasing for the first time in over a year.

The city has lost some 40,000 financial jobs since August 2007.