Scenes from a jobs crisis as New York City struggles with a labor shortage: ‘It’s a mess’

Startling new data has shown that New York State has shrunk by about 300,000 people since the pandemic. While New York City added 13,500 jobs in December, the city lacks jobs to pre-COVID levels.

Some of the townspeople talk about their struggle with the lack of workers and how business is falling.

There are no tourists here

Sevestet Sakar, 78, owner of the Village Tannery leather store in the West Village, has been in business for 49 years.

“Three people worked in the factory and we ended up serving only one out of three,” she said. “We try, but it’s part-time. It’s not full time. I had to cut production.

“Money fell”, probably “halfway” after the pandemic.

“First, we have people who do not come down. Nobody came out. He has grown a little, but he will never be the same. The biggest loss is tourists. Tourists do not come to the country. We have very international clients.”

Not enough workers

“It’s a mess,” says the manager of Il Mullino, an Italian restaurant in the West Village. “You cannot find people who know what they are doing after the pandemic. . . Dishwasher, they used to wash dishes. Now they break glasses and dishes and laugh. There’s nothing you can do.”

Before the pandemic, the restaurant had 35 employees, but now the number of part-timers has increased to 45 “because they only want to work on certain days and certain hours.”

high turnover

Ziyad Hermez, 38, owner of Manousheh, a Lebanese bakery on Bleecker Street, said he had the same number of employees after the pandemic as he did after the pandemic, but it was hard to keep them.

“We just posted job ads and they are not coming down. Job advertisements are always up-to-date. We are constantly interviewing,” he said.

“It was a lot slower,” he said, referring to post-pandemic, adding that before the pandemic, he made between $900,000 and $1 million in sales, compared to $600,000 in 2022.

“At the end of the day, we were always able to find people to interview and train them. The problem is how long they last, right? Previously, we would have people who are here for at least three months.”

He said that now people last two weeks. “I will schedule about 60 interviews a week and two people will come to them. The number may seem crazy, but it literally happens.”