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Raleigh-Best Ciry for Jobs

Raleigh/Cary Jumps to 7th from 14th on Forbes

'Best Cities for Jobs' List

By WRAL Tech Wire

Joel Kotkin, an author and Forbes magazine columnist who will be keynoting an economic forum in Raleigh next week, has some good news for Raleigh-Cary residents and businesses longing to see growth in the economy coming from the private sector.

In Forbes' latest "Best Cities for Jobs" report, Raleigh-Cary vaults to seventh place from 14th a year ago among "big Cities" (65 metros with 450,000 or more jobs) with a 2.2 percent growth in employment.

North Carolina's Department of Commerce Labor and Economic Analysis Division data reported slightly higher numbers. As of March Raleigh-Cary added 12,600 jobs overall during the past year, an increase of 2.5 percent. Government jobs, however, were down 3,200 or 3.5 percent.

Overall among the 398 metros analyzed, Raleigh-Cary ranks 40th, according to Kotkin.

While encouraging for the locals, the news bodes better for the country, Kotkin says. With real unemployment (counting people who have quit looking for work) in the high teens and North Carolina among the worst states overall for jobs (seasonally adjusted 9.7 percent unemployment, according to East Carolina University), Kotkin reports that the private sector is generating jobs, not government.

"It’s a symptom of a significant and welcome shift in the weak U.S. economic recovery: employment growth has moved away from the public sector to private businesses," he writes.

"In 2011, for the first time since before the recession, growth in private-sector employment outstripped the public sector. More than half (231) of the 398 metro areas we surveyed for our annual study of employment trends registered declines in government jobs, with public-sector employment dropping 0.9 percent overall. Meanwhile, private-sector employment expanded 1.4 percent.

"Instead of government, the big drivers of growth now appear to be three basic sectors: energy, technology and, most welcome all, manufacturing."

That's good news for Raleigh-Cary since so much technology is based in the Triangle area.

The Triangle's seasonally adjusted jobless rate in March was 7.6 percent, down from 8.1 percent a year ago, according to ECU.

Joblessness in the Raleigh-Cary MSA was 7.7 percent, a drop from 8.12 percent in 2011.

In the Durham-Chapel Hill MSA, the March jobless rate was slightly better at 7.4 percent, down from 7.8 percent a year earlier. (Durham-Chapel Hill didn't make the top 10 report lists from Forbes.)

State data shows an increase of 5,000 jobs, or 1.8 percent, over the past year. Of those, 1,300 came in government.

For the state, an increase in manufacturing is very welcome since North Carolina still relies very heavily on that sector.

Interestingly, the state data for March showed an increase of 2,900 manufacturing jobs across North Carolina's 18 major metro areas, including 700 in Durham-Chapel Hill, but none in Raleigh-Cary. The big gainers in the capital MSA were leisure and hospitality (1,500) and mining, logging and construction (1,500).

Raleigh-Cary manufacturing jobs actually declined by 300 over the past year while Durham-Chapel Hill's one-month gain erased a one-year deficit,

For the enitre list click on the link below,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2012/05/01/the-best-cities-for-jobs-2/ 

Copyright 2012 WRAL Tech Wire. All rights reserved.