By Eli Dvorkin and Rachel Neches
A warehouse worker may never write a line of code. Neither will most construction workers, medical assistants, or retail managers. But increasingly, they can’t get hired without digital skills. Unless city leaders act quickly to help more New Yorkers develop these skills, workers will find it increasingly difficult to qualify for entry-level jobs—and to advance in jobs that are becoming more technology-enabled.
That may seem surprising at a moment when artificial intelligence is raising questions about whether coding will be done by humans at all. But across New York City’s economy, employers are sending another signal just as clearly: digital skills are becoming more important, not less.
A new report from the Center for an Urban Future finds that demand for digital skills is rising rapidly in industries and occupations far beyond tech, including many that have long offered more accessible entry points into the labor market and where strong digital skills have not typically been required.
Op-Ed | To Make Nyc More Affordable, Help New Yorkers Build Digital Skills
That has significant consequences for the city’s efforts to expand economic mobility and make New York more affordable by opening pathways into first jobs and better-paying work.
Our research reveals that the share of all New York City job postings asking for in-demand digital skills rose from 34.5 percent in 2015 to 44.2 percent in 2025. Over the same period, the number of postings seeking these skills grew 40.3 percent, more than four times as fast as overall job postings.
Nearly half of transportation and warehousing job postings now ask for digital skills, up from about one-third a decade ago. In construction, the share has climbed from 32.5 percent to 43.5 percent; in retail, from 27.9 percent to nearly 40 percent. More than half of manufacturing job postings now seek digital skills.
The target is moving quickly, too. Among the top 1,000 digital skills listed in New York City job postings in 2025, nearly 15 percent did not appear just three years earlier, including generative AI, prompt engineering, and ChatGPT. And it’s not just AI; employers across industries are also seeking experience with data tools, productivity software, and workplace platforms.
Access to these skills is increasingly tied to economic opportunity. Full-time job postings asking for at least one digital skill advertised a median salary of $110,000, 25 percent higher than postings that don’t require digital skills.
There are promising signs that city leaders recognize the need. The Mamdani administration recently announced AI literacy modules for all public high school students, while NYCEDC has launched an AI literacy pilot with the city’s public libraries. But the scale of the shift in the labor market calls for a much broader response.
Mayor Mamdani should make a major new investment in the capacity of education and training organizations to help New Yorkers build skills ranging from basic digital literacy to more advanced data, software, and AI-related skills. Workforce organizations need flexible funding to update curricula, train instructors, purchase software and equipment, and integrate digital skill-building into sector-specific programs. These investments should also help workers already on the job keep pace as their occupations become increasingly technology-enabled.
City and state leaders should also develop and fund a renewed Digital Equity Plan that goes beyond broadband and devices to include the skills New Yorkers need to access jobs, education, public benefits, and other opportunities. Libraries and community-based organizations should be central to this effort.
Given the pace of change, New York will always be playing catch-up unless we start at the beginning. That means giving every student a strong foundation in digital skills and the ability to adapt as technologies change.
Mayor Mamdani and NYC Public Schools should launch a Computer Science for All 2.0. The share of students enrolled in computer science nearly quadrupled from 5.5 percent in 2016 to 20 percent in 2024, yet most still do not take a computer science class in any given year. As AI automates more coding tasks, the next phase should go broader, expanding evidence-based instruction in computational thinking and digital fluency from kindergarten through graduation.
These investments belong at the heart of Mayor Mamdani’s affordability agenda. Bringing down the cost of housing, childcare, and other essentials is critical. But making New York more affordable also means helping more New Yorkers gain the skills they need to get in—and get ahead—in a changing economy.
