9/11 and the New York City economy

In New York City, the events of September 11, 2001, resulted in the deaths of 2,699 workers. In addition to the human, political, security, and social implications of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, there were profound impacts on New York City’s economy, its labor market dynamics, and individual businesses.

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In New York City as a whole, the attack caused an additional loss of about 143,000 jobs per month over a three-month period beyond the trend in job losses already occurring as a result of the economic recession of 2001. The effect of September 11th was concentrated on the finance, professional services, information, arts, entertainment, management, and manufacturing industries that make up the "export" sector of the New York economy. About two-thirds of the attack-related job losses were in the export sector.

Reflecting both the locus of the terrorist acts and the industrial distribution of the ensuing job losses, the borough of Manhattan lost jobs as a result of the attack over a slightly longer period. Job losses in Manhattan were about 60,000 per month and continued for four months.

The data in this report were collected in conjunction with the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The job loss figures are estimates based on a deviation-from-trend methodology. For more information, see "9/11 and the New York City Economy: A borough-by-borough analysis," by Michael L. Dolfman and Solidelle F. Wasser, in the June 2004 Monthly Labor Review.