The Urban Institute today alerted us to this nifty interactive map showing where jobs have been created and lost in different cities throughout the U.S. Users can toggle through different industries to see which areas enjoyed job growth between June 2009 (the official “end” of the recession) and last year.
Some of the statistics come as no surprise — of course Washington, D.C. area has created a few government jobs — but did you know that Nashville also added a ton of workers to the public sphere? In fact, the Nashville Business Journal reported last May that while the city has lost thousands of private-sector jobs, nearly 25,000 of its residents have gone to work for the government over the last decade (though it appears that the tide reversed slightly in 2011).
New York City has lost over 8 percent of its financial workers, and Las Vegas a whopping 30 percent, but bankers and accountants seem to be doing just fine in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Well-known tourist destinations like New Orleans and Miami have seen steady growth in the leisure and hospitality industry, but Worcester, Mass. has them both beat in that department, most likely because Northeastern vacationers are today more likely to opt for a cheap holiday close to home. And manufacturing, while spotty throughout the length of the Rust Belt, seems to have had a decent time in northern Ohio and Michigan. Maybe the industry really is making ground-level a comeback?
Ultimately, these numbers don’t say much about the U.S. economy overall. But they could certainly prove useful in assessing the state of local economics — not to mention providing a valuable resource to those entering the workforce or thinking about a career change.