While the Omaha-Council Bluffs area continues to ride out this recession in better shape than most metro areas around the country, it appears it’s faring no better when it comes to job growth.
The latest economic comparison among the nation’s 100 largest metro areas by the Brookings Institution still ranks the Omaha area among the most recession resistant, with lower job losses since the recession’s start, lower unemployment and firmer housing values. Combining those measures, the Omaha metro area ranks among the top 10.
But Omaha appears to lag many cities when it comes to getting job growth started again during the recession’s recovery phase.
In the Brookings study, Omaha ranked 90th among the 100 largest metro areas in job performance during the latest quarter, from October through December. Omaha had net job losses of about 1 percent in that period, nearly double the average for other cities.
Des Moines, also one of the better performers since the start of the recession, likewise posted a bad fourth-quarter job performance, ranking 79th with job losses of almost 1 percent.
People in Omaha and Des Moines probably shouldn’t worry too much about one bad quarter, said Howard Wial, the Brookings economist who is the lead author of the quarterly, 100-city report. “I’d be more concerned if it persists,’’ he said.
But when some of this recession’s better performers are now struggling to add jobs during the recovery, it’s another indication of how tough it has been across the country to get job growth going again, Wial said.
Only one metro area in the country has now attained its pre-recession level of employment McAllen, Texas. Some metro areas have seen job gains for a time but have not been able to sustain them.
“We’ve had lots of cities that showed one quarter of growth and then went back into decline,’’ Wial said. “There’s no job growth on any consistent basis.’’
Scott Strain, an economist for the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, said a lot of factors could have gone into Omaha’s poor job performance in the last quarter of 2009, including the harsh winter weather.
But he said it also could be a reflection of the conservative nature of many business owners and the productivity of existing workers. Many employers are going to the careful about adding jobs until they know the economy is back on track, in the meantime turning to their current workers to boost productivity.
Uncertainty about what is happening in Washington with health care and climate change legislation also is cause for caution, Strain said.
“In talking to business folks, they’re a little more positive, but I still don’t think they’re going to pull the trigger until there’s some result in Washington,’’ he said.
Mike Eastman, a career center manager for the Nebraska Labor Department in Omaha, wasn’t surprised by the Brookings numbers. He’s still not seeing the number of new job postings it will take to get employment growing again.
“It’s not what you’d like to have seen with talk of recovery,’’ he said. “It’s hard to say what the employers are looking at right now. But we do have a lot of smart, very intelligent business owners who are going to make good decisions for their companies.’’
Contact the writer:
444-1130, henry.cordes@owh.com
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