The total business level of the “Fashion Industry” has always been a difficult figure to calculate. The statistical sources measure only a part of the equation and the data is reported sporadically.

However, the statistical data suggests that the Fashion Industry’s overall business activity has declined over the past several years in real dollar terms. The events of 9/11 and the recession have taken its toll. The 2002 industry payroll, according to the New York State Department of Labor, was $5.66 billion, an increase of only 7% from the 1999 figure. This is approximately the inflation rate in this 3 year period, and therefore no real dollar growth has taken place. Additionally, the manufacturing sector payroll was down 2% in the past year alone in current dollar terms and therefore all of the growth in payrolls has been in the wholesale sector.

Manhattan represents about 85% of the citywide figure and the BID represents a reasonable proportion of the Manhattan figure, about 30%. All of these figures are a significant drop in the impact of the industry both Citywide, throughout Manhattan and especially the BID. The BID has historically represented over 55% of the Manhattan payroll total, not 30%, and Manhattan has represented as much as 95% of the Citywide total, not 85%.

The value added from the New York City apparel and textile manufacturing sector in 1997 totaled $4.0 billion. This is a drop of 13% from the 1992 reporting in real dollar terms and a more significant decline in inflated dollars. This, when added to the 8.2% decline from 1987 to 1992, indicated that the impact of the apparel and textile manufacturing sector in New York City has decreased significantly over time. The 2002 manufacturing census will not be published until later this year, but the number of firms and employees has dropped significantly and it is likely that this will be reflected in the value added component.

Total wholesale apparel sales in New York City were $40.1 billion in 1997. This was only an increase 3% from the 1992 figure. In Manhattan, the 1997 total sales figure of $37.9 billion was only 2.5% higher than the 1992 figure. Again, the 2002 wholesale census will not be published until later this year. This represents a real decline in total sales, once inflation is factored into the equation. Even in the wholesale sector the number of firms and the number of employees are down which should also be reflected in the level of business activity. All of this evidence indicates that overall business activity is down in both current and real dollar terms, certainly exacerbated by the poor economic conditions in the post 9/11 New York economy.

An interesting anomaly of the Apparel Industry is that the vast majority of firms in New York City, in Manhattan and within the Fashion Center, are very small companies. This is in direct contrast to the consolidation that has taken place among many economic sectors. Citywide, only 1.5% of all “Fashion Industry” had more than 99 employees and 80.1% had fewer than 20 employees. The Manhattan figures are even more skewed toward smaller firms, as only 1.4% of the establishments in Manhattan had in excess of 99 workers and over 84.2% had fewer than 20 employees. The percentage of larger employers has shrunk slightly since last year, while the percentage of small firms has remained relatively constant. This is a trend that has been going on for all the years of our survey.