Area Development
In a progress report of job growth in U.S. metro areas, Garner Economics finds that the top five areas with the greatest increase in jobs added over the past year are Missoula, Montana; Ocean City, New Jersey; Manhattan, Kansas; Lawton, Oklahoma; and St. Joseph, Missouri-Kansas. These cities recorded new employment records as of July 2010, with Missoula seeing a nearly 8 percent increase in jobs added from the previous year. Overall, most new job growth is occurring in metros in the eastern United States.

Other cities have found it difficult to bounce back from the recession when it comes to the labor markets. Elkhart-Goshen, Indiana, saw employment drop 36 percent in July 2010 from a peak in July 2006. Nearly 40 percent of the metros with the greatest job losses are in California and Florida, which had 14 and 11 of the worst performing metros, respectively.

Across the country, 158 of the 372 studied metros added workers in July 2010, up from 135 metros that created jobs in June 2010. About half of metros have the same number or fewer workers than they did in July 2009. Job growth at the metro level did not begin to grow until six months after the recession's end date of June 2009.