Entry-level tech job postings in New York City have dropped 49% between 2022 and 2025, the steepest decline of any occupational category tracked in a new study from the Center for an Urban Future, a New York-based think tank.
The computer and mathematical sector took the biggest hit, but it wasn’t alone. Entry-level office and administrative-support postings fell 36%, as did entry-level roles in business and financial operations. The arts, design, entertainment, sports and media fields saw entry-level postings drop 34% since 2022.
City Comptroller Mark Levine flagged the findings in a post on X on Monday, pointing to artificial intelligence as a likely factor.
“AI may be starting to break the bottom rung of the career ladder, making it much harder for young people to enter the workforce,” Levine wrote.
He noted a striking imbalance in the tech pipeline: “For the first time ever there are now more new computer science grads than entry-level tech jobs in NYC. Today there are roughly 1.6 new grads for every opening.”
Not every sector is shrinking. Healthcare practitioner and technical roles saw entry-level postings rise 21% since 2022, the largest increase in the study. Legal sector postings climbed 8%, while community and social services, protective services, and life, physical and social-science fields each rose 7%.
Levine tied the numbers to a broader pattern he’s been warning about. “Postings for entry-level tech jobs in NYC have fallen 49% since 2022, even as overall tech employment has remained relatively stable,” he wrote. “This pattern is showing up in other AI-exposed professions as well.”
A Longer-Running Warning
This isn’t the first time Levine has raised alarms about AI’s effect on the city’s job market. In May, he warned New York was “sleepwalking into the age of AI,” citing a report using Moody’s Analytics data that estimated AI could put 300,000 city jobs and $14 billion in tax revenue at risk.
That report also said New York’s exposure cuts both ways: “There is no city in America — and perhaps none on earth — more exposed to both the promise and peril of artificial intelligence than New York City.”
Levine said the most likely outcome is actually modest growth, with AI potentially contributing to about 52,000 new private-sector jobs a year through 2030. Still, he’s urged Mayor Zohran Mamdani to treat preparation as urgent — calling for the city’s rainy-day fund to be raised to a recommended 16% of annual tax revenue, along with pension system reforms and stronger protections against AI-powered threats to public infrastructure.
