March 26, 2010 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
January payroll employment in "Sweet 16" metropolitan areas
In January, among the metropolitan areas that are home to universities with teams playing in the regional semifinals of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, Morgantown, West Virginia, registered the largest increase in payroll employment over the past 12 months (+1.7 percent). The largest over-the-year percentage decrease in employment among these areas was San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California (‑5.3 percent).
[Chart data]
In January, among the 371 metropolitan areas for which nonfarm payroll data were available, 346 areas reported over-the-year decreases in employment, 24 reported increases, and 1 remained unchanged.
The largest over-the-year percentage increases in employment were reported in Ocean City, New Jersey (+5.8 percent), Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, Washington (+3.6 percent), Sandusky, Ohio (+3.1 percent), Kokomo, Indiana (+2.4 percent), and Bismarck, North Dakota (+2.0 percent).
The largest over-the-year percentage losses in employment were reported in Odessa, Texas (‑10.1 percent), Grand Junction, Colorado, and Yuma, Arizona (‑9.2 percent each), and Steubenville-Weirton, Ohio-West Virginia. (‑8.9 percent).
Over the year, nonfarm employment declined in all 36 metropolitan areas with annual average employment levels above 750,000 in 2009. The largest over-the-year percentage decreases in employment in these large metropolitan areas were posted in Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada (‑7.3 percent), Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California (‑6.3 percent), Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Arizona (‑5.5 percent), and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California (‑5.3 percent).
These data are from the Current Employment Statistics (State and Metro Area) program. To learn more, see "Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment – January 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-0320. Note that employment data were not available for one metropolitan area with a team in the semifinals: Manhattan, Kansas.
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