Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/17/2011 -- New York City has fared better in the recession than previously thought, as revised jobs data from the state’s Labor Department shows.

The city’s unemployment rate in January 2011 was 8.9 percent. The rate was 10 percent in January 2010. According to Barbara Byrne Denham, an economist with a real estate investment firm, the city lost around 141,000 jobs since April 2008. This is below the previous estimate of 179,000 jobs that the city was supposed to have lost.

James Brown, principal economist of the state’s Labor Department has also said that the city lost fewer jobs than during the recession and regained them faster than previous estimates. He also estimates that since the economic recovery began, the city has regained around 50,000 jobs, about 90,000 short of the prerecession employment figure.

The main sectors which have created most of the new jobs are the hospitality industry (restaurants and bars), education, and healthcare. Most of the job losses were concentrated in the state and local government offices. The private sector in New York City hired 53,000 workers in the 12-month period ending in January 2011.

NewYorkCrossing, a job aggregator site, has been tracking all the available jobs in the city and has found that the main sectors with the most openings were as follows: information technology (20,000+), financial services (10,000+) and sales (8,000+). The site has been able to find a total of over 102,000 jobs in New York City so far.