Metro troubles

Metro areas will be slow to regain their pre-recession employment levels, according to a report released Monday (June 20) by the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) during their annual meeting.

Analyzing the prospects of 363 U.S. metro areas, the report predicts that 75 metro areas are expected to have double-digit unemployment rates by December 2011, and 48 are not expected to return to peak employment until after 2020.

There is some good news. The nation’s gross domestic project will move from 1.9% growth during the first half of 2011 to 3.5% for the second half, according to the report, written by Global Insight in conjunction with the USCM’s economic team. By December 2014 more than half of all metro areas will have returned to their previous peak employment level.

In remarks to mayors attending the conference, USCM President Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said, "It’s time for Congress to get on with the serious business of legislating short and long-term solutions to our jobs crisis…. We need to stand for a new world order in federal spending. It’s time to bring our investments back home. We can’t be building roads and bridges in Baghdad and Kandahar, and not Baltimore and Kansas City. Not when we spend $2.1 million on defense every single minute. Not after nearly $1.2 trillion spent and over 6,000 lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan."

METRO REPORT NOTES
• Metro areas are forecast to comprise over 86.4% of all payroll additions through 2015. Meanwhile, unemployment rates are expected to exceed 10% in 69 metros; 9% in over 100 metros; and 8% in 173 metros until the end of 2012.

• Job growth in 2011 will reach just 1.2%, only a bit higher than underlying labor force growth, resulting in an unemployment rate that only slowly retreats from its current rate of 9.1%.

• Unemployment will end 2011 at 8.6%, and not fall below 8% until late 2013.

• Only in the first half of 2014 will employment in the U.S. match its previous peak level of early 2008.

• By the end of 2011, 75 metros will have double-digit unemployment rates, and 193 metros (53%) will have rates higher than 8%.

• At the end of 2012, 311 metros will have unemployment rates above 6%; 173 metros will have rates above 8%; and 69 metros above 10%.

• In 2010, U.S. metro economies accounted for 89.8% of the nation’s gross domestic product and wage income, and 85.7% of all jobs — slightly down from 2008, but still the overwhelming majority of domestic product and wage and salary disbursements.

• Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 37 of them belong to metropolitan areas of the United States.