Employment and Workforce

The Town’s major employ­ers and ham­lets serve as New Castle’s ​“cen­ters of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty.” Aside from the depar­ture of Reader’s Digest (see dis­cus­sion below), not much has changed inso­far as employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in New Cas­tle over the past few decades. This is large­ly due to the recog­ni­tion that New Cas­tle is main­ly con­sid­ered a ​“bed­room” com­mu­ni­ty with a 55 minute train ride to New York City and close prox­im­i­ty to the busi­ness cen­ters of White Plains, NY and Stam­ford, CT. Fur­ther, this fact is empha­sized with the small num­ber of employ­ers and jobs con­tained with­in the Town’s bor­ders. In 2013, there were a total of 4,553 pri­ma­ry jobs in New Cas­tle, a major­i­ty of which were in the retail trade (27%) and edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices (17%) sec­tors. Between 5% and 7% of jobs were found in accom­mo­da­tion and food ser­vices; admin­is­tra­tion and sup­port, waste man­age­ment, and reme­di­a­tion; con­struc­tion; health care and social ser­vices; man­age­ment of com­pa­nies and enter­pris­es; and pro­fes­sion­al, sci­en­tif­ic, and tech­ni­cal ser­vices. Accord­ing to the 2013 New Cas­tle Finan­cial Reports, New Castle’s top six employ­ers account­ed for 11.64% of the labor force. New Castle’s largest employ­er was the Chap­paqua Cen­tral School Dis­trict, with 375 employ­ees, account­ing for 4.40% of total employ­ment. The Chap­paqua Bus Com­pa­ny employed 200 peo­ple, account­ing for 2.35% of employ­ment. Wag­on Road Camp employed 150 peo­ple, or 1.76%, the Town of New Cas­tle employed 112 peo­ple, or 1.31%, and World Cup Schools employed 85 peo­ple, or 1% of the labor force.

The Town’s loca­tion along Metro North Railroad’s Harlem line, the Saw Mill Riv­er and Tacon­ic Park­way, and State Routes 120, 117, and 133 pro­vides those employed with­in the Town easy train and vehi­cle access to their places of work. The major­i­ty of res­i­dents who com­mute to White Plains or New York City by train enjoy an aver­age trans­port time of twen­ty or fifty-five min­utes, respec­tive­ly. Even giv­en increased trends in telecom­mut­ing, eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty with­in the Town is depen­dent on these trans­porta­tion con­nec­tions. In Chap­ter 1, Liv­able Built Envi­ron­ment, this Plan estab­lish­es goals to main­tain and improve these con­nec­tions, enhance bus reli­a­bil­i­ty and explore the fea­si­bil­i­ty of alter­na­tive trans­port oppor­tu­ni­ties such as self-dri­ving vehi­cles, bike and pedes­tri­an path­ways. New Castle’s trans­porta­tion net­work is para­mount to pro­vid­ing the Town’s work­force with reli­able access to their places of employ­ment and entertainment.

Fiscal Condition

New Castle Hamlets