Every region and county has a slightly different job market, and some data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday gave us a closer look at where, at the local level, some of the most dramatic labor market changes have occurred.
On our road trip through the counties with the highest annual job growth and loss, our first stop is scenic Monterey County, California, where employment is growing at a whopping 4.8% annually. Richard Vaughn, the county’s economic development manager, said the growth was driven by agriculture.
“We have strawberries, lettuce, lettuce, broccoli,” Vaughn said.
Kevin Dayton, a government affairs consultant at the nearby Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the growth likely reflects a rebound from last year, when the region was hit by flooding.
“And it has caused a lot of damage to early crops, especially strawberries,” Dayton said.
Our next stop is the Windy City. Cook County performed the worst among the 10 largest counties in the USA.
“I view Chicago as kind of the center of the Midwest economy,” said Thomas Walstrum, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The Midwest is the manufacturing center of the country, he said, which has grown slowly for decades. “And we continue to see slow growth after the pandemic.”
And a decline in one particular segment — RV manufacturing — is likely why Elkhart County, Indiana, a few hours away, saw the sharpest decline in employment.
“Demand for RVs went crazy after the pandemic and now it’s back down to earth,” Walstrum said.
And in sunny northeast Florida, St. John’s County saw the strongest year-over-year job growth, according to Scott Maynard, vice president of economic development for the county’s Chamber of Commerce.
“We’ve seen job growth in education and health care,” Maynard said. “There’s been tremendous growth in health care.”
With additional healthcare facilities currently being built, he expects this sector to continue to grow as more people move to the area.
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