Tech:NYC Digest: March 9

Tech:NYC Digest: March 9

March 09, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Wednesday, March 9, 2022 

In today’s digest, Mayor Adams wants you back in the office, Pfizer tests antiviral medication for pediatric patients, and the post-pandemic hiring trends tech companies are watching.

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 1,795

    • New positive cases, NYC: 634

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 1.0 percent (no change)

  • NYC Hospitalizations: 466 (-48)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • New Yorkers with at least one dose: 89.2 percent

    • New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 75.7 percent

In today’s latest:

  • Mayor Eric Adams is spending the next phase of his time in office getting people to spend more time and money in the city. (Bloomberg)

    • The mayor embarked on a “back-to-normal” campaign across the city Monday to highlight New York’s newly rolled back COVID-19 restrictions, with stops for lunch at a Ukrainian-American restaurant and a town hall at Goldman Sachs’ headquarters. There, he extolled the importance of being in the office and having workers around to bolster small businesses.

  • The WHO said new COVID-19 infections dropped by five percent globally in the last week, continuing a declining trend in new coronavirus cases and deaths that started more than a month ago. (ABC News)

  • Hawaii announced yesterday that it will drop its mask mandate on March 26, becoming the last state in the nation to do so. (CNN)

    • A study released by the CDC yesterday suggested mask mandates in schools helped protect children and teachers from the coronavirus last fall. However, mandates have remained a subject of debate among some students and their parents. (New York Times)

  • Pfizer announced Wednesday that it has started a clinical trial of Paxlovid, its COVID-19 antiviral medication, for non-hospitalized pediatric patients aged 6 to 17. (POLITICO)

In other reading:

  • A guide for New Yorkers trying to follow changes to COVID mandates (Gothamist)

  • ‘Booming’ LIRR and Metro-North commuters return to Manhattan in high spirits (New York Post)

  • Brooklyn startup’s custom balloons photograph Earth from planet’s edge (Crain’s New York)

With the rise of permanent remote work, more US cities have seen increases in their tech workforces, leading some industry leaders to worry about a talent drain from larger “superstar” cities.

But the latest data indicates this hasn’t been the case for New York.

According to new research released by the Brookings Institution, tech employment in NYC expanded five percent year-over-year in 2020, despite the challenges presented by the first year of the pandemic.

  • That’s an increase from the 3.5 percent yearly growth rate between 2015 and 2019, according to the report.

Other superstar tech cities — San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin — saw slower tech job growth in 2020 compared to the same timeline. Mark Muro, one of the report’s lead authors, pointed to New York as the exception:

  • “New York is a really interesting story in that it is the only superstar city to actually accelerate in tech employment growth in 2020,” he said. “The city has really ascended over the past decade.” (Crain’s New York)

What it means: These trends indicate it’s less likely that tech jobs are moving from one city to another, but that tech hiring is up in virtually all US metro areas.

LinkedIn data scientist Brian Xu sees that boom continuing in New York. (Axios)

  • "We've seen that as things have started to subside and vaccinations increase, we're seeing people flow back into New York," he said, noting that New York was on the rise for all worker migration, not just tech. "I think a lot of workers are just coming back."

What to watch: With more companies locking in reopening plans, large tech employers and startups alike are feeling the pressure to make broader decisions on whether their pandemic-era “work from anywhere” policies will stick around. That’s when we’ll have a better idea if these shifts are a temporary trend due to a crisis — or a longer-term remake of the tech talent map.

In other reading:

  • Did COVID-19 Really Change the Office Forever? We’re About to Find Out. (Commercial Observer)

  • COVID-19 safety tips to consider as you return to work (CNN)

  • Hybrid work is fantastic. Except when you're the only person who shows up. (Protocol)

  • Argyle, a New York-based employment data platform developer, raised $55 million in Series B funding. Signalfire led the round and was joined by Bain Capital Ventures, Bedrock, and Checkr. (VentureBeat)

  • Hopscotch, a New York-based, community-oriented B2B payments platform, raised $6.1 million in a seed round extension. Shine Capital and Stellation Capital co-led the round and were joined by NOEMIS Ventures, 3KVC, Valar Ventures, and Red & Blue Ventures. (Businesswire)

  • Selfbook, a New York-based provider of hotel payment software, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Tiger Global led the round and was joined by JAWS, the family office of Starwood chairperson Barry Sternlicht. (TechCrunch)

The Black Venture Institute is accepting applications for its summer 2022 cohort. BVI is a curriculum-based program dedicated to teaching Black operators the foundational elements to become angel and venture investors. Learn more and apply by March 18 here.Blue Ridge Labs, a program of Robin Hood that supports both for-profit and nonprofit early-stage tech ventures, is accepting applications for its 2022 fellowship program. This year’s four-month program focuses on expanding digital equity for New Yorkers, and selected participants receive stipends and research funding, as well as mentorship and community resources. Learn more and apply by March 24 here.The Transit Tech Lab is accepting applications for its 2022 program. The lab, which supports growth-stage companies with solutions for improving NYC’s public transit system, provides the opportunity to pilot their tools with the MTA and other leading transit agencies. Learn more and apply by March 25 here.Udacity, in partnership with Citi, is accepting applications for its programming and web development scholarship program. The scholarship is open to Black and Latinx individuals in the NYC metro area looking to build their tech skills or begin a career in tech. Learn more and apply by March 28 here.Y Combinator is accepting applications for its Summer 2022 cohort. The program will be all-virtual with optional in-person opportunities, and accepted companies will receive $500K in total investments. Learn more and apply by March 31 here.

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