Manufacturing
Manufacturing accounts for a significant share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal products. The food-processing industry is the most stable major manufacturing sector in the city. Food making is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents, many of them immigrants who speak little English. Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with $234 million worth of exports each year.
There are over 233,000 manufacturing jobs in more than 10,000 New York City industrial businesses, with the highest concentration of industrial employment in Manhattan. This includes manufacturing, warehousing, utilities, and transportation. Manufacturing jobs average $41,000 annually (NYS DOL, 2nd Qtr 2005), about $10,000 more than comparable jobs in retail or restaurants. The manufacturing sector has the highest percentage of first-generation immigrants making up 64% of the workforce (NYC Dept. City Planning) and African Americans comprising 78% of the production workforce (2004 American Community Survey).
These are small businesses, with an average size of 21 employees (NYS DOL, 2nd Qtr 2005). Examples of goods manufactured in the city include Broadway costumes, custom-made cabinets, croissants for hotels, and wooden crates for shipping fine art. These items are labor-intensive and require collaboration between the end-user and the manufacturer. In recent years, as real estate and globalization pressures have increased, the remaining manufacturers have become more design-oriented and single customer-focused. To boot, production methods have become cleaner and more technology-driven.
Despite the adaptability of New York manufacturers, there remain looming challenges to the sector’s survival. A 2003 city-sponsored survey of the industrial sector identified three major local challenges to retaining businesses: 1) high cost of real estate; 2) high costs of doing business; and, 3) uncertainty about land use policy.
A 12,900-square-foot (1,200 m2) biodiesel plant run by Tri-State Biodiesel, LLC will begin construction in the Bronx in 2010. The facility will process used cooking oil collected by TSB from over 2000 New York restaurants with methanol and a catalyst to create biodiesel fuel. More than 1 million US gallons (3,800 m3) of waste oil could be collected in Brooklyn every year according to a 2004 Cornell study. The fuel produces 78 percent less carbon-dioxide emissions than standard diesel.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of New York City