New York Tech Jobs Grew 32% in a Decade, More Than Twice the Bay Area's Pace

The city remains much smaller as a tech employer. The report counts 452,000 tech jobs in New York, against 804,000 in the Bay Area. But the faster growth suggests the commercial side of AI, selling and deploying the technology inside banks, law firms and insurers, is pulling work towards cities where those customers are concentrated.

Software developers accounted for the largest share of new tech jobs at companies outside the technology sector, according to the report, which suggests demand for engineers inside ordinary businesses has held up despite the spread of AI coding tools.

Several AI developers have expanded in the city this year. Thinking Machines Lab and Cohere opened their first New York offices, and Anthropic leased a 16-story building in Hudson Square. Advertising for start-ups selling AI tools to financial, legal and insurance firms has also become common on the subway, Semafor reported.

"Increasingly, tech is just woven into everything about the city's economy," said Julie Samuels, president and chief executive of Tech:NYC. She argued that New York's more varied economy makes its tech sector less exposed to the boom-and-bust cycles that have hit Silicon Valley.

Samuels also drew a contrast in what the two regions talk about. In the Valley, she said, conversations turn to "AI safety and some of the risks associated with this technology all the time," while in New York "the conversation is much more about implementation of the technology. Who's using it? Who's paying for it? How is it changing businesses?"

The report arrives as US tech employers continue to cut jobs, with Canva, Squarespace and Angi among companies announcing layoffs this month. Whether New York's mix of tech and non-tech employers keeps its tech workforce growing through that downturn will be the test of Samuels' argument.