Jobs Are Everything — MSA Job Growth Rates and Comparison to Prior Employment Peak
Posted by Ted C. Jones on October 23, 2012
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Jobs are everything to an economy. Period. Where ever jobs go, so goes the demand for housing. And where ever roof-tops go, so goes the demand for commercial real estate.
The latest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) seasonally-adjusted employment data (as of September 2012), are compared in the following tables. The percentage change in the prior 12 months is simply the number of jobs in September 2012 compared to the same period in 2011. The column that compares current employment change since the prior peak employment calculates the percentage change between current employment numbers and the peak employment recorded from January 2006 through December 2009.
The first table below lists the top 30 MSAs and metropolitan divisions in job growth in the latest 12 months.
This next table lists MSAs with the largest percentage job loss when comparing September 2012 to the same in month in 2011.
In the abysmal recession in recent years, some markets have recovered all the jobs lost and even more, while others continue to struggle. The next two tables show the MSAs with the best recovery since the peak in jobs (with the peak being the maximum number of jobs from January 2006 to December 2009) and those struggling.
The top 30 markets in getting back to normal include:
The markets with the biggest struggle to return back to normal include:
See the attached pdf for a complete listing of all the MSA-related statistics. The first tab includes a listing alphabetically by State and then by MSA within States. The second tab sorts from the largest 12-month job growth rates, while the third tab denotes those MSAs with the greatest trajectory of employment growth based on the previous peak employment numbers.
If you have any questions or comments, just email back.
Ted
