More New York City finance jobs will be lost than originally expected.

Overall, the city is now expected to lose twice as many private-sector jobs than initially thought, according to an article by CNN. It is projected that up to 165,000 private-sector jobs could be cut during the next two years. Of the jobs to be cut, 21 percent, or 35,000 jobs, will be in the financial sector. In July it was anticipated the city would lose 85,000 jobs by 2010, with 25,000 of those being in the financial sector.

The New York-White Plains-Wayne area’s financial activities industry employed 571,600 workers during September 2008, down from 578,300 during August. According to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, this is a decrease of 1.6 percent from last year. Although some industries declined, the area saw a total non-farm employment of 5,255,000 during September, up from 5,237,000 during August and an increase of .5 percent from last year.

The United States as a whole lost 600,000 private jobs from August 2007 to August 2008, while New York City added 31,000 private sector jobs during the same time period.

“What’s been happening to the rest of the country may have finally caught up with us,” Comptroller William Thompson said in the article. “The credit crunch has affected evey sector in different ways – the small grocery store that can’t get credit, the small or mid-sized retail store that’s having problems, those that can’t get mortgages.

“Go back to previous recessions like May 1990 to November 1992 when we lost almost 350,000 jobs, or the after effects of 9/11 and the dot-com bust, where we lost 225,000 jobs,” he continued. “The one thing we learned is we bounce back stronger than ever before.”