Lukewarm job growth: The new normal?

By Chris Kissell May 5, 2014 6:00 AM

 

Last year marked another year of job growth, more evidence that the Great Recession is now in America's rearview mirror as the nation's economy moves forward.

Still, the jobs numbers were far from robust.

In 2013, the job-growth rate increased by 1.7 percent -- the same percentage of growth as in 2012, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Lee McPheters, research professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University in Phoenix.

While any growth is a cause for celebration, those waiting for a return of the go-go days of the 1990s -- or even the solid job growth in the years before the 2007 recession -- may have a long wait indeed, McPheters says.

In fact, he wonders if America has entered a "new normal," in which job growth can be summed up in a single phrase: "Not bad, not great."

In the following interview, McPheters offers a snapshot of U.S. job growth in 2013.

The top 10 cities for job growth are all in the western or southern United States. Aside from North Dakota, that's also true of the top 10 states. What factors are driving job growth in the West and South as opposed to the Midwest and East Coast?

The West and Southeast have benefited from migration growth patterns over the past several decades. Based on 2013 census data, Florida and Texas ranked first and second in domestic migration, and California was first in international migration.

In general, people have resumed moving from the Midwest and Northeast to the West and Southeast. North Dakota is a special case, where job growth linked to shale oil and other resources has caused growth rates to spike.

California, Texas and Florida appear to be the biggest winners. Do those states share anything in common that is driving their job growth?

What they have in common is construction jobs, a traditional driver of recession recovery, but an ingredient that has been lacking this time. The nation added 180,000 construction jobs in 2013, and California, Texas and Florida account for one-half of these. California added 46,000 construction jobs, followed by Texas and Florida (in that order), with approximately 27,000 construction jobs each.

By contrast, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cleveland are all struggling and rank at the bottom. What is going wrong in those cities?

To rank among the leaders in overall job creation, a metro area has to see above-average growth in its larger industries. Cleveland had solid growth in professional and technical jobs, more than 3 percent in 2013, but that was not enough to offset slower growth in health care, an industry that is three times larger in Cleveland and has shown good growth nationally.

 

Read the entire article and see the top ten cities and states at: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/lukewarm-job-growth-normal-100000267.html