Look to Google instead of Wall Street to provide jobs in 2012, New Yorkers.
A new report by Cresa, a corporate real estate advisory firm, revealed a downward trend in financial industry office rentals in its fourth quarter 2011 report for Manhattan.
By analyzing office rental trends citywide, Cresa predicts job creation and contraction.
“The city comptroller recently estimated that the financial services industry is set to lose 10,000 jobs in New York City,” read the report, referring to Comptroller John Liu’s report released earlier last year. “For every financial service job eliminated, a loss of two other jobs is expected to occur in various support services across the city.”
Cresa has watched office space open up in Midtown North and Downtown, where many financial services firms are traditionally located. The vacancies are evidence of a shrinking financial job market, the report claims.
“It is too early to gauge the impact, but the threat is real,” the report warned.
But there is a silver lining: Cresa predicts that media and technology companies will bloom in the Big Apple in 2012.
“The attraction is the city’s access to a large talent pool, access to venture capital,” read the report.
The survey noted that the city’s plan to build a large engineering and applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island will be a big boon to job growth.
The tech and media sector has created 20,000 jobs in New York City in the last five years, according to Cresa.
Where will the jobs be?
Cresa predicts that tech company growth will center around Midtown South, and not in Midtown North or Downtown, where the financial industry is shrinking.
The report noted that the needs of tech giants like Facebook and Google, which both have established regional centers in New York, are different than traditional offices.
Tech companies prefer open spaces, natural light and efficient electrical wiring over corner offices and cubicles, the report argues. Newly constructed buildings, according to the report, are better suited to fit those needs.
Follow Emily Anne Epstein on Twitter @EmilyatMetro.
