NEW YEAR, NEW JOB: Despite the high unemployment rate, many companies are searching for more workers in 2013. (
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Sure, the unemployment rate has been way too high for far too long — but there is a silver lining: The city is crawling with hiring managers who say they can’t find enough good people. Chairs, cubes and offices that could be filled are sitting empty while there’s lots of meaningful work to be done.
As a result, companies are eager to hire as quickly as possible.
“If I could find 10 good people to hire tomorrow, I’d do it,” says Alex Moazed, president of Applico, a Gramercy-based mobile strategy and consulting services provider.
Although Moazed is looking to hire workers whose job descriptions vary from other companies also hiring this year, the attitude and character of the workers they covet are pretty much the same.
“Personality and cultural fit trump competency any day of the week,” says Neil Blumenthal, co-CEO of hip eyeglass maker Warby Parker.
So if you’re seeking work, the only thing standing between you and your next job may be knowing where to look — and fortunately, we’ve got your back on that one. To find out who’s hiring, we consulted the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workforce experts, a slew of city agencies, and companies and recruiters who have jobs to fill.
Here’s where the hot jobs are in 2013:
MADE IN NYC
For years, the city’s job growth came from Wall Street and mega corporations, but over the past few years, younger, rapidly growing companies are giving those iconic industries a run for their money. Warby Parker, for instance, has grown from one to 154 employees in the past two years, and the company plans to double its staff by the end of 2013. Applico and doctors-appointment-booking Web site ZocDoc both say they’ll grow their payrolls by 50 percent in the new year.
Although these “made in New York” start-ups certainly hire their share of geeks, they hire plenty of other types, too — and some of the jobs they seek to fill didn’t even exist five years ago. For example, Tumblr is searching for “evangelists” — essentially, people who foster relationships between the blogging platform and leaders in various fields by helping to get them started on the site and showing them how Tumblr can help promote their industries. Warby Parker needs “customer experience associates” who can “kill customers with kindness”; ZocDoc is recruiting mobile designers, as well as Hindi, Mandarin and Italian writers/translators; Applico needs mobile strategists.
But if you don’t have an established track record in roles like these, don’t despair.
“The specific skills you bring to the table aren’t generally as important as the personality and passion you bring to the workplace,” says Karsten Vagner, director of people at ZocDoc. To that end, he has hired actors, teachers, singers, dancers and actors to work at the company. “It’s not what you’ve done but who you are,” he adds.
HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL
ASSISTANCE
An aging population requires all kinds of care, and hiring in this sector — which employs more people than any other industry in the city, according to the Economic Development Corporation — is booming. Physical therapists, occupational therapists and registered nurses are all in demand, according to job search engine indeed.com.
One organization, NYC-based Partners in Care, which provides home health aides, plans to hire 370 workers per month in 2013, according to human resources vice president Jay Conolly. The company provides free training and certification and is eager to hire a diverse set of workers.
“Our goal is to look like what the city looks like,” says Conolly, which means Partners in Care is in special need of multilingual workers who understand its clients’ cultures.
But health care employment isn’t only patient-facing, says Dawn Fay, district president at human capital consulting firm Robert Half International (RHI). There’s a huge demand for experienced electronic medical-records workers (up 400 percent nationwide from last year, according to indeed.com) who can help convert paper records to electronic records.
FREELANCE
One in three Americans is an independent worker, according to Sara Horowitz, founder and executive director of the Freelancers Union. And while hanging your own shingle was once a risky proposition, hiring freelance workers is the new normal at most companies, says Manpower regional vice president Susan Fontana.
“It’s part of the permanent model,” she says.
In NYC, freelance work is on the rise, says Rich Pearson, marketing vice president at Elance, which connects virtual independent workers with projects. More than 200,000 NYC-based workers earned money through Elance last year, according to Pearson, and he expects the market to grow 45 to 50 percent in 2013.
Providers of co-working spaces and office suites also anticipate this trend will continue. Regus, an international company that provides services like virtual offices and drop-in business lounges for more than 10,000 workers, anticipates a 40 percent increase in NYC requests this year.
“Regus continues to expand our footprint across Manhattan and to provide convenience and flexibility to the growing remote workforce,” says Regus Americas CEO Guillermo Rotman.
PROFESSIONAL
SERVICES
Finance historically has been the city’s largest private employer — but not anymore, according to the EDC: There are now more accountants, architects, information workers, compliance experts, staffing professionals and others in the professional services sector who earn their paychecks in the Big Apple than there are workers on Wall Street.
For instance, Prudential had more New York job openings — 923 — listed on the Web than any other company, according to a recent search conducted on job search engine Simply Hired.
“We need compliance experts, techies, project managers, auditors, experienced sales professional and so on,” says Prudential staffing vice president Jana Fallon. She adds there’s a war on talent when it comes to filling certain roles.
Express Personnel — a national company that supplies salaried and contract workers with professional, technical and managerial skills to its clients — is so bullish on the demand that it just opened three new NYC offices.
MOBILE AND SOCIAL
Smartphones, iPads, Kindles, Facebook and Twitter weren’t ever-present in our lives five years ago, but they’re commonplace today; as a result, we expect to find apps for everything and anything we want to do and to be able to connect to companies and to each other via both social media and corporate portals. What this translates to is the creation of job roles that didn’t exist even just three years ago, according to data from indeed.com.
“People weren’t thinking about apps, small screens and leveraging social media the way they are today,” adds Ahmad Buker, the branch manager of RHI’s creative group, which recruits mobile, social and tech experts. He says the demand for mobile designers and developers, interaction designers, social-media experts and project managers exceeds the supply of qualified workers, and expects this trend to continue into the new year.
TOURISM AND
HOSPITALITY
New York City broke its tourism record in 2012, welcoming 52 million visitors — and Mayor Bloomberg says he plans to break the record again. As a result, new hotels, restaurants and attractions are being built, bringing new jobs.
Among the estimated 31 hotels that will open in the city this year are the swank SLS on Park Avenue, which plans to hire 275 employees, while the Intercontinental Hotel Group is projected to open four or five hotels and hire about 200 workers.
The city also expects unprecedented restaurant growth this year. The renowned Altamarea Group, for instance, which owns four city restaurants, including Marea and Ai Fiori, says it will open three others, creating as many as 300 new jobs.
“New York is one of the food capitals of the world,” says CEO and owner Ahmass Fakahany. “Our confidence in the city is so strong that we don’t hesitate to invest in jobs.”