The Most In-Demand Jobs in New York, and Where the 1,166,222 Annual Openings Go

Any ranking of the most in-demand jobs in New York puts home health and personal care aides first. New York State is projected to add 188,720 jobs between 2024 and 2034, and 73 percent of them belong to that one occupation, which pays a median of $39,680 a year.

Healthcare Support Takes Four Out of Every Five New Jobs

Total employment moves from 10,709,250 in 2024 to 10,897,970 in 2034. That is a net gain of 188,720 jobs, 1.8 percent, spread across a full decade, and healthcare support claims 153,260 of it.

Almost all of that lands in one occupation. Home health and personal care aides climb from 713,860 to 852,320, a gain of 138,460, or 73.4 percent of everything the state adds. Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations add 55,630. Sales and related occupations go the other way and lose 49,110.

Aides at $39,680, Nurse Practitioners at $163,340

Home health and personal care aides are the largest occupation in the New York metro area at 644,700 jobs as of May 2025. The metro median across all occupations is $61,430. The aide earns 64.6 percent of the local median, $21,750 below it.

Nurse practitioners go from 21,820 to 31,000 statewide, up 42.1 percent, the fastest of any sizeable occupation in the projections, and their metro median comes to 4.1 times what the aide takes home.

Occupation	Metro jobs (May 2025)	Median annual wage	Projected NY State change, 2024-2034
Home health and personal care aides	644,700	$39,680	+19.4%
Retail salespersons	202,080	$38,280	-4.7%
Registered nurses	197,740	$119,720	+7.1%
Security guards	142,760	$43,980	-0.03%
Software developers	121,000	$166,830	+5.5%
Nurse practitioners	21,680	$163,340	+42.1%

Wage and employment figures cover the 22-county New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area, which reaches into New Jersey. Projections are statewide.

Software developers top the table on pay and add almost nothing on growth, creeping statewide from 108,010 to 113,930 across the decade. Lawyers number 101,000 statewide. The decade adds 350 of them, 0.35 percent, at a metro median of $208,880. Securities, commodities and financial services sales agents hold 59,450 metro jobs at a median of $167,890 and pick up 1.6 percent statewide over the same ten years. The best-paid work in New York is close to fully built.

98 Percent of Openings Come From Someone Leaving

Net growth hides the traffic. The market generates 1,166,222 job openings a year, and replacement produces 1,147,350 of them, 98.4 percent of the annual total, each one a chair that emptied because someone retired or left the occupation. Growth accounts for the other 18,872. Fast food and counter workers produce 42,385 annual openings on projected growth of 2.4 percent, second-largest volume of any detailed occupation in the state.

Shrinking occupations throw off volume too. Retail salespersons are projected to fall 4.7 percent from a base of 241,880, yet the occupation produces 32,432 openings a year, and cashiers, down 12.7 percent, produce 27,462.

Aides carry the largest opening count of any detailed occupation in the state, 128,686 a year, and 13,846 of those come from growth against 114,840 from replacement. Security guards show the pattern at zero growth. The state projects the occupation flat through 2034, the count landing within a rounding error of where it started. It still posts 17,126 openings a year.

Where the Wage Premium Runs Thin

Those openings pay at metro rates, and the metro area averaged $41.50 an hour in May 2025 against $33.54 nationally, 23.7 percent above the national mean. Management sits 35.5 percent ahead of its own national figure, $94.64 an hour against $69.84. Legal is close behind at $87.83 against $67.07.

Healthcare practitioners average $62.24 an hour locally, a 19.1 percent premium over the national $52.26. Healthcare support gets 6.6 percent, $20.91 an hour against $19.62, one of the thinnest margins of any major group in the metro. The group is 8.9 percent of local employment against 5.1 percent nationally. The state will hold 852,320 home health and personal care aides by 2034.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do home health aides actually make in New York City?

Median $39,680 in the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area as of May 2025. The mean is $41,120 across 644,700 workers. The metro median for all occupations is $61,430, $21,750 above the aide’s median.

Are retail jobs in New York disappearing?

Shrinking, not disappearing. Retail salespersons are projected to fall 4.7 percent statewide from a base of 241,880 and cashiers 12.7 percent, but turnover still leaves 32,432 and 27,462 openings a year.

Which six-figure job in New York is growing fastest?

Nurse practitioners, up 42.1 percent statewide from 21,820 to 31,000 by 2034, at a metro median of $163,340, followed by data scientists at 25.4 percent and $135,980 and by medical and health services managers at 24.5 percent and $167,580.

References

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, New York-Newark-Jersey City NY-NJ metro area, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/regions/northeast/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages_newyork.htm

New York State Department of Labor, Long-Term Occupational Projections, statewide 2024-2034. https://dol.ny.gov/long-term-occupational-projections