McAllen Ranked Number One for Employment Growth
Story courtesy of AOL Jobs
Recently, the Brookings Institute released the Q3 edition of its MetroMonitor, a "quarterly, interactive barometer of the health of America's 100 largest metropolitan economies." The MetroMonitor analyzes trends in U.S. metro employment, unemployment, economic performance, housing prices and real estate-owned properties to determine the rate of the country's recession and recovery.
So what did they find with regards to jobs? Looking at Q2 2009 to Q3 2009, the overall percent change in employment change in the top 100 largest metro areas was -0.5% and also -0.5% for the entire U.S. Eleven metros that saw increases in employment in the last quarter and another six saw no change at all. Here are the 11 metros that saw positive job growth:
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 1.3
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.6
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.5
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.5
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.3
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.2
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.2
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.1
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.1
Change in employment Q2 2009-Q3 2009: 0.1
The MetroMonitor also compared the largest 100 metros' peak employment quarter to the most recent quarter (Q3 2009), measuring the extent to which employment has recovered from the recession's full impact. In that respect, only one metro area has seen employment growth from its peak until Q3: McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX whose employment has risen 1.4%. When you consider that the percent change in employment for the 100 largest metro areas was down -4.3% since the peak and down -4.6% for the entire U.S., there seems to be a lot more healing to go ... but at least we seem to be on the right track.