Cleveland makes Top10 list of least competitive metros for job growth in an analysis released Thursday by Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. The Cleveland area added far fewer jobs than had been expected based on national job growth trends.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Greater Cleveland ranks among the Top 10 Least Competitive Metros for job growth, according to an analysis released Thursday.
The analysis by Economic Modeling Specialists Intl., or Emsi, a CareerBuilder company, ranked the 150 most populous metro areas based on job growth between 2014 and 2015.
"Each metro's actual job growth was then compared to what would have been expected for that metro based on national job growth trends during that same time period," stated a press release about the analysis. "The difference between the two measurements is the competitive effect, i.e., how much the metro is exceeding, matching or falling behind national job growth trends because of something unique to that metro's regional economy."
The Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor metro, which includes, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain and Medina counties, gained 13,123 jobs during the time period. Employment should have increased by 21,376, based on national job growth trends. That 8,253 job deficit ranked the Cleveland area eighth among the Top 10 Least Competitive Metros for job growth. The analysis determined that -0.8 percent of employment was due to the metro's competitive effect. Compare that to the Provo-Orem, Utah metro, which had the highest competitive effect at 4.8 percent.
Chicago ranked first, New York second and Philadelphia third among the Top 10 Least Competitive Metros.
The Dallas metro was ranked first among the 10 Most Competitive Metros for job growth. San Jose, California, was second and Los Angeles was third.
"The analysis uses Emsi's extensive labor market database, which pulls from over 90 national and state employment resources and includes detailed information on employees and self-employed workers," the release states.
In a related matter, a recent analysis by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that it will take the Cleveland metro area more than another two years to regain the jobs lost to the Great Recession. The Columbus and Cincinnati metros have already recovered their lost jobs.