New York's status as the U.S. economy's leading financial hub could be slipping as a leading figure in the city's business community is sounding the alarm.
Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which advocates for the city and the financial industry, said in an appearance on WABC 770 AM's the "Cats Roundtable" on Sunday that the shift is a "scary" development and raises questions about the Big Apple's economic competitiveness: "Right now, the big challenge is are we going to remain competitive for jobs?"
Wylde told host John Catsimatidis that the "financial services industry, they're our biggest taxpayers and major employers – and that industry is shrinking in New York."
Data compiled by the Partnership for NYC that was provided to the New York Post on Monday showed that the state of New York has been surpassed by Texas in terms of the size of the financial sector workforce in the two states.
The group's data showed that Texas had 519,000 financial sector employees in 2024, above the 507,000 financial services workers in New York. That figure includes employees in banking and finance roles, while excluding insurance and real estate workers.
It also showed that the financial services sector in New York City shrunk by 8,400 jobs from January through August this year, after it added 6,400 jobs in the same period last year.
Since 2019, NYC's financial services workforce grew by only 4% – a much slower rate than emerging rival metro areas like Austin, which grew 27%, Charlotte gained 21% and Dallas increased 11%.
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Additionally, it showed that JPMorgan Chase now employs more workers in Texas than in the state of New York, with about 31,500 workers in the Lone Star State last year, which made its workforce in Texas the largest of any state.
Despite the slowing growth, New York City remains the leader in terms of banking jobs as other metro areas close in. The report noted that JPMorgan has 24,000 workers in NYC, topping the 18,000 in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Goldman Sachs currently has 7,800 workers in NYC, though its Dallas hub is set to grow from 4,000 employees to more than 5,000.
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"We have to stop the drain. The only way we can do that is we've got to manage our budget in a way that we control spending and control taxes and keep public safety and improve affordability," Wylde told WABC during the interview.
Wylde said that she understands the concerns about the rise of New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist candidate for New York City mayor who is the frontrunner in the race, but said that she is "trying to assure people that New York is bigger than one person."
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"We absolutely are going to save New York. New York is full of leaders… In the nonprofit sector, in the cultural sector, business… No one person, no one leader is a threat to New York as long as we all stick with the city," Wylde told Catsimatidis.
