LeFlore County dropped from Fort Smith metro area jobs reports

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has removed LeFlore County in Oklahoma from the Fort Smith Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which technically reduces the region’s workforce size by almost 17%.

Worker commutes, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census, resulted in the change.

LeFlore County was removed from the Fort Smith MSA because “it no longer met the minimum threshold to be included, based on employment commuting patterns in the 2020 Census,” noted a statement from the Arkansas Department of Commerce. “Federal Statistical Area Delineations are issued every 10 years by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), based on population and employment commuting pattern data from each decennial census.”

While it doesn’t change the region’s population or where people shop, work or receive services, it could change how the region is viewed for private and public grant applications, or how site location firms measure the region for economic development proposals.

Prior to the change, the Fort Smith metro had 117,640 jobs, and a workforce of 121,736 in December. Under the change, now noted on the BLS page for the metro, the estimated December job count is 98,114, with a workforce of 101,510. The change technically reduces the December job numbers by 19,526, and the workforce size by 20,226.

The revised data places peak employment in the Fort Smith metro at 104,228 in June 2008. The record prior to the revision was 124,098 in June 2006.

“Bigger is always better,” said Tim Allen, Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, when asked about the change. “You know, it’s really a perception thing. When I’m selling Fort Smith, I’m not selling the city, I’m selling the entire metro.”

According to the 2024 updated U.S. Census, the Fort Smith metro area includes Crawford, Franklin, and Sebastian counties in Arkansas, and Leflore and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma. The metro population was estimated at 232,848 as of July 2024, up from 227,222 as of July 2020. The LeFlore County population as of 2020 was 48,129, above 39,281 in Sequoyah County.

Allen said the chamber will continue to use Census numbers and the “drive-time population number” in economic development proposals. But he said there is some concern that site location consultants could automatically exclude the metro because the BLS data now shows a smaller workforce.

Chris Hoover, the grants and government relations manager with the City of Fort Smith, said it’s uncertain how the BLS change will impact applications for grants and other federal funding sources.

“Historically, the City of Fort Smith has used Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) data to substantiate the need for grant funding and to demonstrate the potential impact of awarded funds on the community. This data has included key metrics such as age demographics, population levels, educational attainment rates, and other relevant socio-economic indicators,” Hoover noted in a statement provided to Talk Business & Politics. “With the Trump administration’s ongoing review of federal grant programs and the methodologies employed in awarding projects, we anticipate potential changes to the data sources that may be required in future federal grant applications. It remains uncertain how these adjustments will affect the use of MSA data or if they will significantly impact the current methodology. It is still too early to determine the extent of these changes or their implications for the City’s future grant applications.”

A July 2023 memo from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget includes language about how MSA data should and should not be used. The memo explains that such data “are not intended for any public or private sector non-statistical uses such as program administration or service delivery.”

However, the memo does suggest that MSA data can be used to determine a funding formula.

“These areas are not designed to serve as a general-purpose geographic framework for non-statistical activities, and they may or may not be suitable for use in program funding formulas. OMB also recognizes that some legislation specifies the use of Metropolitan Statistical Areas for program purposes. In cases where there is no statutory requirement and an agency elects to use the Core Based Statistical Area delineations in non-statistical programs, it is that agency’s responsibility to ensure that the delineations are appropriate for such use,” noted an excerpt from the OMB memo.