REMARKS
Overall reduction in New York City's workforce
0:05:09
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63 sec
Council Member Restler details the significant reduction in New York City's workforce since the pandemic, emphasizing the scale of the loss.
- The city workforce has decreased from 302,000 to 285,000 employees, a loss of nearly 17,000 workers
- Uses the analogy of a filled Barclays Center to illustrate the scale of the workforce reduction
- Notes that long-time city officials say the current staffing situation is unprecedented in the last 40 years
Lincoln Restler
0:05:09
Our city workforce has shrunk dramatically.
0:05:12
Prior to the pandemic, the city of New York had 302,000 employees.
0:05:16
Today, there are 285,000.
0:05:19
That's a loss of nearly 17,000 employees.
0:05:23
Imagine you walked into a Pat Barclay Center for a great Nets or Liberty game.
0:05:27
Go Nets.
0:05:28
Go Liberty.
0:05:29
Imagine every seat in the building is filled by a hardworking city employee, and then poof, they all disappear.
0:05:36
This is the number of city workers that we have lost since the pandemic.
0:05:40
And if you're sitting high up in the nosebleeds at the Nets game or the Liberty game, you know how many people are packed in that stadium.
0:05:46
When I talk to long time city government officials, they tell me they have never ever seen it this bad.
0:05:52
Last year, the HRA administrator testified that our social service agency has never had fewer staff in her 40 years of service.
0:06:00
And a long time parks official told me the same thing, that the Brooklyn Parks Department hasn't been this short staffed in 40 years.
0:06:06
Not since the era era of New York City emerging from a fiscal crisis have our agencies been so depleted.
