Three-quarters of new york city building industry workers live in the five boroughs
56 Percent of NYC-Dwelling Workers Live and Work in the Same Borough
Seventy-five percent of New York City’s 238,643 building industry workers hailed from one of the City’s five boroughs in 2013, according to a New York Building Congress analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS).
Approximately 10 percent of building industry workers lived in Long Island, while 9 percent lived in New Jersey and 5 percent reported residences in the Mid-Hudson Valley in 2013, the most recent year for which ACS data are available.
According to the survey, which is based on personal responses and incorporates both union and non-union labor as well as participation by “off the books” workers, construction and other blue-collar operations accounted for 79 percent of the industry workforce. The remainder of the workforce, as defined by the Census Bureau, consisted of sales and service occupations as well as white-collar jobs, such as architects, engineers, and management.
Residence v. Place of Employment
Of the 178,108 New York City residents who worked in the building industry in 2013, 72 percent hailed from either Queens or Brooklyn. Queens led the pack in 2013 with 67,000 workers followed by 61,075 from Brooklyn, 23,324 from the Bronx, 13,702 from Staten Island, and 13,007 from Manhattan.
While just 5 percent of all building industry workers reside in Manhattan, approximately 38 percent of the workforce reported that Manhattan was their place of employment in 2013. Queens and Brooklyn each served as the place of work for approximately 25 percent of the City’s building industry workforce. The Bronx was the location for approximately 7 percent of workers, while Staten Island registered a little over 4 percent.
Looking further into the census data, the Building Congress found that 56 percent of the New York City residents employed by the building industry worked in the very same borough in which they lived in 2013.
Approximately 70 percent of Staten Island’s jobs were held by residents of the borough, while 64 percent of Brooklyn’s jobs were held by Brooklynites. Similarly, 58 percent of Queens jobs were held by Queens residents, and 55 percent of Bronx jobs were held by residents of that borough. The only outlier was Manhattan, where just 12 percent of the jobs were held by Manhattan residents.
“Whether you are an architect, engineer, or tradesman, one of the great benefits of working in the New York City building industry is the ability to play a role in creating a tangible legacy very close to home,” said Building Congress President Richard T. Anderson. “It is heartening to see that we have a lot of men and women who are helping to build the homes, schools, and infrastructure in the very communities where they live and raise their families.”
Additional Demographic Findings:
- White non-Hispanic workers accounted for 40 percent of the workforce in 2013, followed by Hispanic workers at 37 percent, Black non-Hispanic workers at 13 percent, and Asian workers at 10 percent.
- Nearly 57 percent of all respondents said they speak a language other than English in their homes. After English speakers, the most prevalent languages are Spanish (34 percent), Chinese (4 percent), and Polish (3 percent).
- Approximately 26 percent of all building industry workers lived in households with incomes greater than $125,000 in 2013. Forty-five percent of workers reported household earnings between $50,000 and $125,000. Twenty percent reported earnings between $25,000 and $49,999, and 9 percent reported household earnings of less than $25,000 annually.
- Approximately 61 percent of the building industry workforce never attended college, and 42 percent of all workers ended their education after earning a high school diploma. Sixteen percent of all workers ended their education after earning collegiate or post-graduate degrees.
- Fifty percent of all building industry workers reported that they had health insurance coverage in 2013, down from 53 percent in 2012.
- The building industry remains male-dominated, with men accounting for 91 percent of all industry jobs in 2013, down from 93 percent in 2012.
Charts and Diagrams
Source: U.S. Census Bureau's 2013 American Community Survey
Source: U.S. Census Bureau's 2013 American Community Survey
