Gentrifying Chinatown Job Market Favors White Workers: Study

CHINATOWN, NY — Chinatown has seen a spike in jobs over the past decade and, according to the Comptroller's Office, that's not good news.

Gentrification has made it harder for non-white residents to find a job in the neighborhood than an affordable place to live, according to a study City Comptroller Scott Stringer's office released last week.

"The demographics of the local labor market have been remade even more dramatically than the local residential market," analysts detailed in the report.

"While local economic and entrepreneurial opportunities should boost incomes and help long-time residents to better afford their rent, this is too rarely the case."

The report, entitled "New York Neighborhood Economic Profiles," found that the city's most gentrified neighborhoods experienced job booms that far outpaced areas where rent prices and the percentage of college educated residents remained stable.

In Chinatown, among the city's top gentrifying neighborhoods, local jobs have rose 12 percent since 2010 — from 18,034 to 20,246 in 2015 — but those jobs are more likely to go to white residents, the report found.

The number of local jobs filled by white employees rose 50 percent in gentrified neighborhoods while those for non-white employees rose by only 12 percent, analysts noted.

And while white people represent less than a third of the gentrified neighborhoods' population, they hold 38 percent of local jobs and almost half of local high-wage jobs, the study found.

Gentrified neighborhoods also see a much quicker rate of business turnover, which can have a negative effect on both local job hunters and local shoppers.

"New jobs," analysts wrote, "are rarely filled by people of color, even though they continue to represent the vast majority of local residents."

As retail and restaurant corridors shift to accommodate new residents, "many long-time residents can feel estranged in their own neighborhood," the study noted. "Displacement, then, can be as much a psychological and existential phenomenon as a physical one."

The study concluded with a series of recommendations for city lawmakers to address the growing job disparity in Chinatown and similar neighborhoods across the city.

Those recommendations included amping up workforce development programs for small businesses — which provided the majority of the local employment — and increasing job training programs that focus on arts, entertainment and dining.

"Clearly, good paying jobs abound in New York City," analysts concluded. "The imperative is not only for government to help 'create' high-paying jobs, but also to ensure that New Yorkers of all races, ethnicities, incomes, and neighborhoods are sufficiently educated, trained, and prepared for these positions."

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