Brooklyn’s unemployment rate has gone down, from 7.7 percent to 6.2 percent, the lowest it’s been since before the recession hit in 2008, according the New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s most recent NYC Quarterly Economic Update.
The report, dubbed ‘Back to the New Normal’ , depicts a citywide decline in unemployment, with Brooklyn remaining the second most unemployed borough after the Bronx.
Since the beginning of 2010, private sector jobs in New York City grew by 16.6 percent, while national growth was less than 12 percent. However, average weekly earning growth remains at only 2.5 percent since this time last year.
“More New Yorkers are working than at any time in the last forty years and that’s a real plus for our economy,” Stringer said. “But job growth is just one part of the equation: we need to see greater wage growth in the jobs we already have and the ones we are gaining.”
The report also sourced Douglas Elliman, the largest residential real estate brokerage in the New York metropolitan area, saying that the Brooklyn real estate market remains high in demand with with average sales prices averaging 8.4 percent per square foot.
One troubling trend, however, is that the number of sales of condos and condominiums fell 16.8 percent between 2Q14 and 2Q15. Additionally, the listing inventory rose 38.6 percent and the listing discount rose to 0.8 percent in the 2Q15 from 1.0 percent in 2Q14.
Overall, though, the median sales price rose 5.2 percent and the average sales price rose 0.7 percent, while days on the market (DOM) fell 33 percent in second quarter of 2015 (2Q15), compared to the second quarter in 2014 (2Q14).
