Wednesday, June 11, 2025

June 11, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Wednesday, June 11, 2025 

In today’s digest, tech hiring trends, celebrate NYC’s 400th birthday, and bye bye broker fees. 👋

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  • Broker fee, shmoker fee: The new law banning broker fees on apartment rentals went into effect today. Here’s what to know, including how it came about, the controversy surrounding the law, and what comes next. (Crain’s New York Business)

    • Consider StreetEasy prepared: The company has already removed the “No Fee” button from its website.

  • New York City is turning 400 and looks pretty good for its age. 💅 City officials are launching the "Founded By NYC" campaign to celebrate the birthday. 🎂 (Hoodline)

    • The campaign will offer a variety of free programs citywide, including NYC-themed movies, the largest ever Summer Streets program with 400 blocks of free events, and more. 

    • Businesses and organizations can submit their event for inclusion here.

  • Mark your calendars: A meteor shower will rain over NYC from June 22 through July 7! ☄️ (PIX11)

    • Experts suggest avoiding light pollution and looking for the shower between dusk on June 26 and dawn on June 27.

➕ One more thing: There’s AI legislation being considered right now that impacts the NYC tech ecosystem — the RAISE Act and New York AI Act.

  • Y Combinator sent a letter today to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins arguing the RAISE Act and the New York AI Act would uniquely harm NY-based AI companies and penalize AI firms even when their models cause unforeseen harm. (Politico)


In other reading:

  • Storefronts and apartments grow, fertilized by new zoning and tax schemes (The CITY)

  • NYC Pride Grand Marshal ready to march (NBC New York)

  • Ex-Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau thanks players, coaches, fans in ad (ESPN)

Tech hiring saw modest net new jobs in May, even though tech employment overall fell. Still — the tech unemployment rate continues to sit below the national rate. 💪

What’s 🆕: Tech job postings totaled 470,000 last month, including 200,000-plus new postings added in May. Software developers and engineers, tech support specialists, systems engineers and architects, and cybersecurity engineers saw good demand.

Yes, but: The tech unemployment rate is at 3.4% (compared to the overall employment rate of 4.2%), and tech employment across the sector fell by an estimated 131,000 positions.

Yes, but, but: Tech employment remains positive for the year, thanks to prior months’ employment gains. 

☀️ Also on the bright side:

  • AI hiring continues to shine. Hiring for AI positions and those requiring AI skills grew quickly. 

    • Employer job postings related to AI are up 117% through May year-over-year.

  • Skills-based hiring remains a core component of many employers' recruiting strategies. 

    • Around 50% of all tech job postings asked for some combination of work experience, training, and industry-recognized certification rather than specifying a requirement for a four-year college degree.

🗽 New York is where it’s at: NYC, Washington, and Dallas metro areas had the highest volumes of tech job postings for the month. 

🔍 Some insights from our own jobs board: Tech:NYC has a jobs board, powered by Getro, with over 4,500 open tech roles from our member companies just a click away.

  • In May, the most searched-for roles on our jobs board were for product, marketing & communications, and software engineering roles. 

  • The most frequent job postings in May were for roles in software engineering, IT, and operations.

  • Not a part of Tech:NYC but want to feature your roles? Look into joining Tech:NYC as a member.

➕ Tech:NYC is hiring! We’re looking for a Membership Manager to play a central role in strengthening and scaling our fast-growing community of tech companies. Learn more and apply here.

In other reading:

  • It's never been harder to dress for work. Just ask Gen Z (Fast Company)

  • ​​ChatGPT outage shows just how many people are using AI at work (MarketWatch)

  • Return-to-office with mental health in mind: Balancing flexibility with structure (Forbes)

  • CloudQuery, an NYC-based cloud governance platform, raised $16 million. Partech led, joined by Boldstart, Tiger Global, and Work-Bench.

  • Dreamhub, an NYC-based AI-native CRM for B2B SaaS, raised $7 million in funding from the founders of MuleSoft, Pardot, and Datorama.

  • Farsight, an NYC-based maker of AI agents for finance professionals, raised $16 million in Series A funding. SignalFire led, joined by RRE Ventures, Link Ventures, and K5 Ventures.

  • Techstars Economic Mobility, for entrepreneurs designing innovative solutions that generate greater economic mobility for low- and moderate-income Americans. Apply by June 11 here.

  • Tech:NYC has partnered with Company Ventures, Blackstone LaunchPad, NYCEDC, and the Zahn Innovation Center to run the NYC Startup Internship Program, connecting high-potential CUNY students, primarily first-generation and low-income, with NYC startups. Apply to be a mentor by June 13 here.

  • The Factor Fellowship, an 18-week, part-time program for working professionals from diverse backgrounds looking to break into in-demand roles at NYC’s fastest-growing startups. Apply by June 15 here.

  • Company Ventures is hosting AI Review events, a year-long conversation series on the current and future state of AI. Submit your AI-related event for consideration here.

  • Each month, Union Square Ventures hosts usvwork — a casual coworking day for founders and builders in NYC. Apply here.

  • Forum Ventures is accepting pitches to its Forum for Founders program. The firm is investing in 30+ companies over the next three months, offering $100K and admission to its pre-seed accelerator to provide personalized GTM and sales support. Apply here.



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