Boston ranked 16th in terms of percentage growth in employment since the recession.
G. Scott Thomas
Greater Boston is among a minority of U.S. metropolitan areas to have more jobs today than it did prior to the recession.
To be sure, four-fifths of America’s major metros still have fewer private-sector jobs than they did before the downturn, according to a new analysis by American City Business Journals, which owns the Boston Business Journal.
The study included 102 metro regions with populations above 500,000. Among that group, 85 lost jobs between September 2007 and the same month this year, while only 17 posted increases. The five-year span began just before the recession’s arrival in December 2007, while the study period ended in September 2012.
In Greater Boston, some 2.2 million people were employed as of Sept. 30, representing a meager 3,600-job uptick from the number of workers on record prior to the downturn. Still, the improvement was good enough to rank the region as the 16th fastest-growing area in the country. In terms of actual net jobs added, the Boston area’s 3,600 ranked 12th nationally.
Three Texas markets enjoyed the strongest growth in private-sector employment since 2007, led by Houston’s gain of 122,800 positions. The runners-up are Austin (up 46,000 private-sector jobs) and San Antonio (up 24,500).
The only other markets to add more than 10,000 private-sector positions in five years were Pittsburgh, Dallas- Fort Worth, Oklahoma City and New York City.
The biggest deficits belong to Los Angeles (down 333,300 private-sector jobs), Chicago (down 204,300), Miami-Fort Lauderdale (down 160,900) and Phoenix (down 150,800). Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., suffered the biggest drop in percentage terms, slipping 13.6 percent since 2007.
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