Job prospects for the New York City metro area are about to hit rock bottom.
Job growth will be down slightly across the five boroughs in 2012, according to a new survey, which says that for each employment sector looking to hire there is one eyeing slightly more in cutbacks.
This news comes as theunemploymentrate in the city ticked up to 8.9 percent — the same level as a year ago — and more unemployed begin a new search for work, according to the state labor department.
A scant 13 percent of local employers plan to hire additional workers in the first quarter of 2012 — slightly less than the number who plan to fire staff — while most other sectors are holding the line, according to a Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.
The dreary job prospects rank the New York City area fourth-worst of the 100 US metro areas surveyed.
New Jersey is listed as the weakest state, with a 4 percent decline in jobs; Connecticut may see a modest 1 percent rise along the I-95 corridor.
These largely unwelcome local distinctions come amidst prospective local gainers: lottery-size salaries in sections of financial services.
And surprisingly, there are good prospects in durable-goods manufacturing, and leisure and hospitality, the quarterly Manpower survey from ManpowerGroup reveals.
Although often cited as dead, durable-goods manufacturing is still thriving in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Gowanus and Long Island City.
But it’s a bloodbath elsewhere. Employers in construction, nondurable manufacturing, professional and business services, education, health and local governments all plan to butcher payrolls.
New York’s net-employment outlook for the first quarter of 2012 is a shocking -0.5 percent, compared with 9 percent growth nationwide, the survey shows.
The outlook for the New York metro area, which extends into surrounding regions, is down from the fourth quarter’s 7 percent and 2 percent a year ago. (The net-employment outlook is the percentage difference between hiring and firing activity.)
Lance Robinson, a single 24-year-old from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, knows all about his prospects. After graduating in June with a bachelor’s degree in healthcare science from Oakwood University in Alabama, Robinson has dressed smartly for many local interviews.
But forget about getting any offers. “I’m thinking of moving out of New York to find work somewhere else,” said Robinson.
But not everyone is ready to throw in the towel yet.
Max Kemnitzer, a director at recruiter Michael Page International, said concerns about New York job growth are well-placed. Still, he said it is not all doom and gloom.
“We have seen a large growth here in jobs in the compliance, legal, tax-risk and other similar fields,” he said. “We expect more job openings for people with niche specialties.”
Another recruiter, who did not want to be named, told The Post of demand for legal eagles with backgrounds in Dodd-Frank. Annual salaries can run as high as $1 million.
And despite the loss of 4,000 financial-services jobs the past three months, 20 of the 22 financial sectors tracked by eFinancialCareers have more job postings than they did a year ago. The Street is recruiting energy traders, bankers, commodities experts and hedge-fund personnel, the Web site operator says.
But that’s not much consolation for many other New York workers, who continue to watch the job market —and their hopes — dwindle.
