New York City continues to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, as it had almost as many jobs in January as it had at its pre-pandemic peak, Crain’s New York Business reported, referencing a New York State Department of Labor (DOL) report.

Private-sector jobs in New York City rose by 235,400 over the year to 4,028,500 in January 2023, the DOL reported. In February 2020, right before the pandemic began, the city had a “record “4.7 million positions, Crain’s reported, adding that, by the end of 2022, the total number of jobs was just 0.7 percent below that peak.

Gains occurred in private education and health services (+87,100), leisure and hospitality (+62,100), professional and business services (+35,000), financial activities (+20,400), trade, transportation, and utilities (+11,900), other services (+10,100), natural resources, mining, and construction (+4,300), information (+3,600), and manufacturing (+900), the DOL reported.

“The city's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in January 2023, up 0.2 percent from December and a decrease of 2.3 percent from January 2022,” the report stated. “New York State's rate was 4.2 percent in January 2023.”

Crain’s noted that the city is still behind the country overall when it comes to recouping all of its lost jobs. The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report showed an increase of 311,000 jobs in February. The national unemployment rate is now 3.6 percent.

“We still caution that the revisions do not mean that job growth will continue to be this robust,” Barbara Denham, senior economist at Oxford Economics, told Crain’s in an email. “There are considerable downside risks ahead including further Fed rate hikes which will slow the economy.”