On July 14, 2026, Executive Director Yesim Sayin was quoted in The Washington Times:
Yesim Sayin, executive director of the nonpartisan D.C. Policy Center, said the D.C. labor market hasn’t been this bleak since the city weathered the 1991-1992 recession and slid toward bankruptcy in 1996.
She pointed out that more young people are leaving than arriving because of the growing scarcity of government jobs — and that Trump immigration restrictions have cut off a yearslong flow of international college students.
“The District didn’t have any Fortune 500 companies; they had the federal government functioning like one,” Ms. Sayin said in an interview. “Now those jobs are gone, and federal contractors aren’t hiring.”
The nonprofit think tank’s report noted this month that the District shed more than 46,000 government and private contractor jobs last year. That’s 57% of a net loss of 79,800 jobs since January 2020, the last month before the COVID-19 public health emergency.
The remaining 33,800 jobs lost between January 2020 and December 2024 resulted from a contraction of hospitality and service employment during pandemic-related restrictions and teleworking.
The report warns that the past year’s shrinkage of professional services poses a greater risk to the District’s “superstar city” economy by hurting its ability to attract an “educated, well-paid and engaged workforce.”
“A weak job market today can have lasting consequences for young workers entering their careers and, over time, make it harder for the District to retain and attract the talent that has driven its economic success,” Ms. Sayin said.
The policy center reported that rising living costs — including high housing and childcare expenses — have made it harder to attract workers than six years ago.
Ms. Sayin urged city officials to “rebuild its competitiveness” by embracing the report’s three recommendations for private-sector growth: Expanded apprenticeships for students in fields such as social work, new tax incentives for export-oriented industries and zoning changes to allow new housing.
“The challenge is creating the conditions for job growth to return,” she said. “Young people are still moving into the city, but we are not able to retain them as they form households and families.”
Read more: D.C. struggling to attract workers after sweeping Trump layoffs
Additional reading: Down 79,800 jobs: A risk to the District of Columbia’s superstar status