Big Apple hopes to land Amazon’s second HQ
New York gathering proposals from local interests.
New York City is officially throwing its hat in the ring to lure Amazon.com’s proposed second headquarters, hoping a large, diverse workforce, extensive university system, big-city living and status as an epicenter of industry will overcome its major drawback as one of the country’s most expensive housing markets.
The city is highlighting the example of Google, which has 5,000 employees in Manhattan, as a prime example of how West Coast tech can thrive in the Big Apple.
Another major selling point is that New York offers access to various industries Amazon is entering, including advertising, media, fashion, food and finance, said Alicia Glen, the city’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development.
“For a company like Amazon that wants to be in all of these different sectors, they have to be thinking this is a great place to put roots down for the next half-century,” she said.
The city is seeking proposals from land owners, developers, business groups and others to find the best locations to rally behind to make a unified pitch; it could propose multiple locations in different boroughs. The city doesn’t plan to offer big financial incentives, considering New York an attractive enough location without them, Glen said.
“Kids want to work in NYC,” she said. “They don’t want to be in a suburban office park.”
Seattle-based Amazon last week solicited proposals for the headquarters, a project that will cost more than $5 billion.
New York has competition from big cities such as Boston and Chicago and smaller markets such as Tulsa, Okla., and Memphis. Amazon set an Oct. 19 deadline for proposals and plans to make a decision next year. The company has said its criteria include a metropolitan area of at least 1 million people with an airport offering convenient flights to Seattle and Washington. men haven’t gotten a collective raise since 1973. Women, though, have seen a 30 percent pay increase over the past four decades.
Part of that is easy to explain: Women have surged into the workforce since the 1970s as attitudes have changed and career advancement for mothers has become more socially acceptable.
And economists know that some male-dominated fields, such as manufacturing and mining, have faced steep declines over the past two decades, taking away some of the best-paying opportunities for workers without college degrees.
“Jobs in health care are growing, and those are traditionally held by women,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist at the job website Indeed. “The jobs expected to shrink most are in agriculture and manufacturing, which are traditionally held by men.”
Union power, which is associated with better pay across blue-collar workforces, has also dramatically waned.
Women, meanwhile, continue to outpace men in college enrollment, suggesting they could be chasing more lucrative jobs in higher numbers.
“Women are highly invested in their education — more so than men — and this should lead to a relative increase in their earnings,” Ariane Hegewisch, program director for employment and earnings at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, wrote this week. “The gains overall show important progress, but we must pay close attention to whether these gains are broadly felt, or only felt by certain groups.”
Hegewisch noted that median earnings for black women fell by 1.3 percent between 2015 and 2016, while pay for white women increased by 4.9 percent. Hispanic women’s wages stayed unchanged.
None of these groups make as much as white men.
The gender wage gap has long inspired debate. Some argue it’s a myth. Others say the figure is misleading. Economists at Cornell University recently crunched pay data and found that most of the pay differences between men and women can be attributed to career choices, while at least 30 percent is “unknown” — leaving room for discrimination.
Pay-equality advocates argue that employers may assume that women with children aren’t as dedicated to their jobs, leading to missed promotions and raises. Research repeatedly finds that such bias exists, though it’s hard to pinpoint how much it actually reduces pay for female workers.